In this episode, Bill Scully and Bill Hunt dive into the messy, real-world challenge of weaving international SEO into an organization’s effectiveness. They chat about how teams need to stop working in isolation and start talking to each other—because when they don’t, things fall apart. Drawing from Adam Gent’s piece on Conway’s Law in SEO, they unpack how a company’s structure can make or break its digital game plan.
They also tackle the user experience side of things, stressing that it’s not just about keywords anymore—international quirks and cross-team teamwork matter just as much. From wrangling web effectiveness to making sure the development process doesn’t drop the ball, they argue for a shake-up in how SEO gets done. It’s about building bridges between people who don’t usually chat, getting everyone clued in, and pushing for workflows that actually work. Think less old-school SEO tunnel vision, more big-picture web wins.”
Key Takeaways
- International SEO requires cross-team collaboration.
- A customer acquisition mindset enhances SEO integration.
- Silos and resource constraints hinder SEO success.
- SEO should be integrated from the start, not an afterthought.
- Local user experience is crucial for international SEO.
- Communication and training improve team effectiveness.
- Web effectiveness needs a collaborative approach.
Catch the Full Episode
YouTube: https://youtu.be/6YhkIUpOpzI?si=nXbSbanKih4MQb2K
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/030fLfgrnse2qgxVSLSYjL?si=zK5H22LuQGKc1Yomzpb8eQ
Show Note Links
Conway’s Law in SEO by Adam Gent – https://newsletter.theseosprint.com/p/conways-law-in-seo
Why is SEO not more integrated by Bill Hunt – https://www.back-azimuth.com/why-is-seo-not-more-integrated/
Transcript
Bill Scully (00:01)
Welcome to Episode 26 of the International Web Effectiveness Podcast, where Bill Hunt and I, Bill Scully, focus on strategies and techniques to improve web presence and manage global websites. In Episode 25, we discussed demystifying the hreflang x-default, breaking down an article that was recently published. If you run an international website, target different regions, and use hreflang, you should definitely check that out.
In this episode, we’re discussing why international SEO isn’t better integrated into organizations. As we mentioned in the last two episodes, when teams collaborate, SEO and digital efforts become stronger, more effective, and more successful. But before we dive in, I want to talk about a recent article by Adam Ghent in The SEO Sprint about Conway’s Law and SEO. Bill, you brought this up—why do you think it’s relevant?
Bill Hunt (01:28)
Yeah, I thought it was timely. In a previous episode, we talked about how companies often create websites that mirror their organizational silos, which can be a big problem. Adam’s article expands on that idea using Conway’s Law, which states that any organization designing a system will inevitably produce a structure that mirrors its internal communication patterns.
His article does a great job of illustrating this, using vivid imagery—everything from silos to monolithic structures—to describe the challenges organizations face. What stood out to me was his discussion about making SEO a team sport. He explained that in successful companies, in-house SEOs don’t work in isolation; they have proactive conversations with developers, content teams, and other departments. In some cases, they’ve even helped restructure their teams to improve collaboration.
From his experience, the in-house SEOs who were the most successful weren’t just focusing on rankings; they were fostering strong relationships within the organization. And as a result, they achieved better outcomes in search. So, I thought it tied in perfectly with our previous conversations and was really relevant to what we’ve been discussing.
BIll Scully (04:14)
Yeah, it was a really technical breakdown, but one of his recommendations stood out because it’s something you’ve suggested to organizations before—getting a technical SEO into the engineering team. That alignment is key. It also reminded me of some of the communication training I went through when I was a manager at Siemens.
I’ve always been a big believer in the importance of strong communication. That brings us to today’s topic: Why isn’t international SEO better integrated into organizations? This is something you’ve been writing about lately, so why don’t you share your thoughts on that?
Bill Hunt (05:30)
In our previous episode on making SEO a team sport, we discussed why it’s not better integrated into organizations. We explored the dynamics of aligning SEO with key performance indicators (KPIs) and how to weave it into different teams. One major challenge we identified was the issue of knowledge hoarding.
We used the analogy of the Super Bowl—many companies treat their SEO specialist like a quarterback, expecting them to carry the entire game. But successful SEO requires a team effort. It’s not just about hiring one expert and hoping for results. Every team—engineering, content, SEO, and marketing—needs to be aligned. Often, these teams work in silos with their own KPIs and goals, which creates friction. A book I read on leadership recently described this tension well. It talked about how different departments, with their own priorities, can sometimes pull in different directions rather than working together toward a shared mission.
Number one, each team is focused on its individual goals, which can be at odds with others. That means marketing is thinking about brand awareness, content is focused on engagement, SEO is optimizing for search engines, and engineering is prioritizing functionality. These teams need to be on the same page and understand that their shared mission is to serve the customer and drive business growth.
And that brings us to international SEO. The integration challenge is even more complex at the global level. A key factor I’ve written about is combining local market knowledge—what the local team knows about their specific market—with corporate best practices. If done right, this alignment ensures we focus on the shared mission: selling, supporting, and creating awareness effectively.
Which brings me to another key point—resource allocation. When teams work in silos, they prioritize their own objectives over the company’s larger goals. As a result, resources aren’t allocated optimally. A common mistake, especially in industries that prioritize brand image—fashion, tech, luxury— is that creativity takes precedence over usability and SEO. There’s a focus on aesthetics, selling an image of “cool” or “innovation,” but then SEO is treated as an afterthought.
Take, for example, a conversation I once had with a board member’s wife. She was searching for a specific brand’s website, but all she found were knockoffs and third-party retailers. Frustrated, she asked, “Why can’t I find this company when I search for it?” It turned out that while the brand was focused on looking ‘cool,’ they had deprioritized SEO to the point where they were buried in search results.
Bill Scully (09:35)
Can I stop you there for a second? I’ve been thinking about this and about your article. I wonder if we’ve been going about this all wrong. We always start by talking about SEO first, but maybe we should be shifting the conversation. Instead of focusing on SEO, shouldn’t businesses be asking how they can shift to a customer acquisition mindset? Because when you think about SEO, people treat it as something separate, when in reality, it should be seen as part of a larger strategy. If you start with the idea that everything should be about acquiring and retaining customers, then SEO naturally falls into place. Does that make sense?
Bill Hunt (09:35)
Exactly. That’s why I added a section to my latest article where I ask, ‘Why do any of us exist in the first place?’ At the end of the day, the web isn’t just a digital business card—it’s an engine for reaching potential and existing customers. But too often, companies don’t have a customer-first mindset. And as you pointed out, they should.
Many businesses operate in silos. Engineering, content, SEO, and marketing all work in their own lanes, each with separate objectives. They should be working together, but they don’t. They focus on their individual KPIs instead of aligning with the company’s larger mission. That lack of a shared mission is what creates inefficiencies. If the mission is to drive sales and support customers, then all these teams should be working in harmony to achieve that goal. Instead, companies often treat SEO like an afterthought, something to ‘bolt on’ at the end, rather than integrating it into the process from the start.
When it comes to international SEO, these challenges become even more complex. Take, for instance, a study on leadership I came across. It found that when businesses effectively combine local market knowledge—what their local teams know about specific regions—with broader global strategies, they perform much better internationally. That’s because they align under a shared mission. The problem we often see is that different teams have their own priorities and aren’t working toward a unified goal.
And this leads to another issue: resource allocation. Many businesses, especially in creative-driven industries like fashion and tech, focus so much on branding, aesthetics, and being innovative that SEO becomes an afterthought. I remember a conversation I had with a board member once. His wife was frustrated because she couldn’t find their brand’s official website when searching for the company. Instead, all the knockoffs and third-party retailers were dominating the search results. That’s because the company had focused so much on being ‘cool’ that they ignored SEO. And that’s just one example of how failing to prioritize search and alignment can negatively impact a business.
Bill Scully (14:57)
Hmm.
Bill Hunt (15:22)
There was this creative-first mindset, but he refused to allow any text on the site.
Bill Scully (15:27)
Let me guess—you’re going to say everything was in images?
Bill Hunt (15:33)
Exactly. Everything was in images because it was the only way they could display their brand-specific font. Nobody had that font, so they opted for images instead. But, as you just pointed out, Bill, at the end of the day, I told them, “If this is just a showcase, a digital lookbook, then fine. Take all the e-commerce elements off the website. Just display the products—whether it’s a handbag, a pair of shoes, whatever the product of the moment is. Just put it up there.”
Bill Scully (15:42)
Yeah, and then what—just add a link to a PDF?
Bill Hunt (16:04)
Exactly. But if you’re actually trying to sell something, if your goal is conversion, you need to rethink the approach. It was a heated debate. Engineering, creative, marketing—they were all pushing back. Even the CMO was backing the designers. But at the end of the day, money talks. If your website is just a sleek brand showcase, that’s fine. But if you’re actually trying to sell something, then you can’t just put up pretty pictures of handbags and shoes and expect results.
Bill Scully (17:16)
That’s exactly it.
Bill Hunt (17:33)
Right! At the end of the day, money talks—and, let’s be real, so do the board members’ spouses. In the end, they rebuilt it. But this isn’t a one-time thing. I’ve actually been called in as an expert witness twice over this exact issue—cases where brands had built their entire websites using campaign concepts, without any real text. No product names, no brand names, nothing. They even used campaign taglines as domain names instead of their brand names, which meant no one could even find them!
Bill Scully (20:03) Yeah, and that’s the problem.
Bill Hunt (20:19) Right. And it’s not just that some creative teams don’t understand SEO—often, SEOs don’t fully grasp the technical limitations or branding concerns that marketing and engineering teams face.
Take campaign pages, for example. Just the other day, someone asked me why their UK campaign page wasn’t ranking. Turns out, they launched the campaign, built a great-looking page, but never actually linked to it from anywhere. No internal links, no sitemap submission, nothing. So naturally, search engines had no way of knowing it even existed. That meant they lost two or three days of crucial visibility right when the campaign launched—time that could have been driving exponential momentum.
Bill Hunt (21:30)
Another issue is the way pages are sometimes deployed. I’ve seen this happen a lot—brands hire a big agency to build a flashy campaign landing page. Instead of hosting it within their own CMS, they use some third-party platform to create the page, then slap a reverse proxy on it to make it appear like it’s part of their main website. But it’s not. The content doesn’t exist in their CMS, there’s no sitemap entry, and no one submits it to Google Search Console. So the page just sits there, undiscoverable.
And then there’s the classic mistake—you’re running a major campaign, and instead of properly formatting the content for search, someone decides it’s easier to just screenshot the text and upload it as an image. Suddenly, all that crucial content is invisible to search engines, and you’ve lost days of potential traction. By the time someone realizes and fixes it, you’ve already missed your window of opportunity.
Bill Scully (24:24)
Right, right. That happens so often.
Bill Hunt (24:46)
I said, “These are the things you must know by the end of your first day, and I will quiz you on them.” For some of these, you should already know before you even walk through the door—like their tech stack. What CMS are they using? Do they have a CDN? Look at some redirects and analyze how they are being handled.
Based on the CMS they use, you should have a fundamental understanding of how pages are assembled. By the end of your first day—maybe by the third day, once you’re done with all the corporate meetings—when you finally sit down with them, these are the questions you need to ask:
- How do we handle redirects?
- How are pages assembled?
- Are there any custom elements or hacks in our CMS?
That way, when they tell you, “We’re only allowed 300, 500, or 1,000 redirects,” you can push back and say, “No, your web server, CDN, or whatever infrastructure you’re using doesn’t have that limitation.”
By understanding the technical side, we can write better recommendations and improve integrations. That’s why it’s crucial to have a search expert involved—whether it’s someone on the project management side who understands both SEO and development or a dedicated developer.
My son loved working at TripAdvisor because they had dedicated search developers. These developers understood the stack, the business goals, and search principles because they worked on technical SEO implementation daily.
Communication is key. The complexity increases exponentially when working internationally. Maybe you have a central global dev team and you’re constantly trying to get things prioritized. Or maybe you have market-level dev teams working independently.
There’s nothing worse than having tickets already submitted to handle something one way, only for individual markets to get audited by different agencies, leading to multiple conflicting recommendations. Now, suddenly, you have four different ways of doing the same thing, all competing for implementation.
That’s why communication, collaboration, and centralization are essential.
Bill Scully (27:18)
Yeah.
Bill Hunt (27:38)
That’s the key. It also ties into resource constraints. If you don’t understand how things work, you’ll always be at the mercy of someone else’s timeline. But if you know how to piggyback on existing tickets and projects, you can get things done much faster.
Bill Scully (28:05)
Yeah, and understanding the KPIs for developers is huge. If you know what they’re measured on, you can align your requests with their goals, making it easier to get things implemented.
Bill Hunt (28:11)
Exactly.
One of the things I mentioned in my ranty intro was site speed. I firmly believe that if I ran a company with dev teams responsible for any client-facing technology, I would require them to use it themselves.
I’ll give you an example. I was working on a project for Disney, and I checked into a Disney hotel. The woman at the front desk was on her fifth day and already looked frazzled. I’m always curious about processes, so I observed how she worked.
She asked for my name, found my reservation, and then saw a note saying, “Get the guest’s email address.” But to enter it, she had to tab through nine screens. When she finally got to the email field, she entered my email but got an error because something wasn’t saved on screen two or three.
I could see her frustration. In the end, she gave up and said, “I’ll fill it in later if I can,” then handed me my key with an apologetic smile.
I told her, “You need to take a picture of this process on your phone and show it to your manager. Ask them why the second thing you’re supposed to collect—an email address—requires you to tab through nine screens.”
Bill Scully (30:21)
Yep.
Bill Hunt (30:22)
The same thing happens at Lowe’s when I try to get a veteran discount. It used to be a nightmare, but now it’s automated at self-checkouts. Before, the employees had to go through a ridiculous series of steps just to verify my veteran status. After watching them struggle, I figured out that all they needed to do was press F4 and tab three times.
The real question is: Are developers actually using their own systems? Have they ever tested their website on a 3G phone? Have they ever tried filling out a form like a real user?
When they do, they immediately realize how frustrating the experience is—and that’s when things start getting fixed.
Another major issue is the lack of clear responsibility. Going back to my first point: We’re all working toward the same mission.
But when there’s no global head of revenue, no global head of customer satisfaction, and no global head of “Does the website actually function the way it should?”—things fall apart. Are we meeting our search KPIs? Our engineering KPIs? Our revenue KPIs? And is it all working together?
That’s what I covered in the article. But is there anything else you can think of—any fundamental, organizational reasons why things aren’t better integrated?
Bill Scully (32:32)
Well, they’re definitely not integrated. But you just piqued my interest.
We focus a lot on user experience, but we don’t always consider it from an international perspective. SEO isn’t just about rankings—it’s a user experience factor.
Who actually owns the international user experience? Are users landing in the right region? Are they being directed to the right page?
Sometimes, within the same region, there’s even cannibalization—people ending up on the wrong page while SEO gets credit for ranking it.
If you look at things in silos, you might think you’re doing great. But in reality, you could be delivering a poor user experience.
Bill Hunt (34:00)
In all my years of working with companies, I’ve never once had a company present me with a country-language matrix that clearly outlines where people are supposed to go. It’s baffling. There’s also no indication that anyone has ever checked it to see if it actually works.
I’ve often thought, what if we could just ping a site from all over the world and see where we end up? That’s one issue.
Bill Scully (34:27)
Right.
Bill Hunt (34:30)
Another issue is how Americans build things. When we create systems, we tend to do it from our own perspective. To borrow from Rumsfeld, we have the known knowns, the unknown unknowns, and the known unknowns. There’s always that gap of things we don’t even realize we don’t know.
It’s amazing how many different countries have unique formats for something as simple as postcodes, yet companies often fail to account for these differences.
Bill Scully (34:51)
Absolutely.
Bill Hunt (34:56)
Take something as simple as phone numbers. I’m old school—I just want to type in a string of numbers, and the system should format it for me. But instead, we’re in 2025, and there are still forms that reject perfectly valid phone numbers because they don’t match an arbitrary format.
I recently had to apply for a fishing permit in the Boundary Waters, and the system kept rejecting my phone number input because it didn’t match their format. It’s frustrating. And then there’s right-to-left languages—companies are still trying to force those into left-to-right layouts. It’s crazy how many businesses don’t think about these fundamental UX issues.
And then there’s another big one: when companies don’t inform users about formatting standards. Imagine trying to enter a phone number without dashes, only to be met with an error message over and over. Or consider forms that don’t account for international variations, like different date formats. I’ve seen Agegate prompts on US sites asking me to enter my birth date in a European format—day, month, year. It’s not labeled, so when I enter my date of birth in the American format (month, day, year), it gets rejected, and I can’t proceed. These seemingly small details have huge implications for user experience.
Bill Scully (36:22)
Yeah, exactly.
Bill Hunt (36:22)
And when they don’t tell you? Oh my God. Phone numbers! I’m old school—I think I should just be able to type my number in a form, and it should automatically format itself. But even now, in 2025, some forms still reject phone numbers if they don’t match a specific format. I had to input my phone number for a fishing permit in the Boundary Waters, and it kept rejecting my entry because I didn’t format it exactly how they wanted. Why don’t we have forms that just accept numbers however they’re entered and format them automatically?
Bill Scully (36:33)
Right.
Bill Hunt (36:51)
And then you have right-to-left languages. People still try to shoehorn non-Latin scripts into layouts that just don’t support them. And what about simple things like currency display? Are we even showing prices in the right currency? And let’s not forget about sites that just straight-up tell users, “We don’t sell to your country,” without providing a link to the correct market or the option to transfer a shopping cart. Why is there no process in place to handle this properly? There should be someone overseeing these fundamental user experience elements.
Bill Scully (38:27)
Right, right. And it’s not just about SEO, right? It goes back to that bigger idea—how do we actually get more clients? How do we sell more? It’s not just about ranking higher in search engines.
Bill Hunt (38:40)
Exactly. It’s not just about SEO; it’s about effectiveness as a whole. Business is a team sport. Website effectiveness is a team sport. Organizations need a more integrated workflow between web development and other teams. There shouldn’t be silos preventing collaboration. Everything matters—IP detection, form usability, field placements, security, performance. Too often, companies build their sites without considering different user experiences.
Bill Scully (40:15)
And how many people never even look at their site on a mobile device?
Bill Hunt (40:21)
Exactly.
It’s funny—I was building something yesterday in AppSheet, Google’s low-code platform. It connects to databases and other systems. What stood out was how fanatical they are about mobile. I was trying to shift the app to a desktop view because it’s primarily for desktop users, but by default, everything was optimized for mobile. It was a challenge to switch it over.
There are people thinking about mobile-first design, but at the same time, some companies still fail to prioritize it. I don’t want to steal the thunder, but Otoko has an article coming out about emerging markets and their impact on e-commerce. She cited some incredible stats—like in India, nearly a trillion dollars in e-commerce transactions are conducted almost entirely via mobile. Yet, many major companies still don’t prioritize mobile-friendliness. Take Hertz, for example—their website wasn’t built with mobile users in mind, despite the overwhelming shift towards mobile browsing.
Another key point I wanted to bring up is the importance of cross-team meetings. You have to discuss these things. You have to make people think. These conversations are critical. If you’re redesigning a website, for example, everyone involved needs to understand the core principles. My background in the Marine Corps really reinforced the value of cross-training. It’s not necessarily about making someone an expert in every function but rather fostering an appreciation for different roles. When you understand what goes into various tasks, you gain a better appreciation for the work and can make smarter decisions.
It’s about awareness—if teams don’t talk, they won’t realize that some processes are inefficient.
Bill Scully (42:44)
Exactly. If you try to whiteboard a process, you might discover that part of it is unnecessary. It could be something that takes up a significant amount of time, but by the end of the session, you realize, “Wait, does anyone actually use this?”
Bill Hunt (42:55)
Exactly! I saw this a lot when I was doing enterprise audits, especially web effectiveness audits. I would ask managers how certain tasks were done, and then I’d ask a few team members the same question. More often than not, the doers weren’t actually following the 19-step process the manager thought they were.
There was one case where an SEO manager insisted that all their optimization guidelines were being followed in the development process. But in reality, those guidelines were printed on the back of a form that nobody was copying anymore. Over time, as the form was photocopied again and again, the back page had been lost. So, all the SEO requirements they thought were being implemented had actually been ignored for who knows how long.
Bill Hunt (44:32)
Bill Hunt: Have you ever wondered why SEO requirements are sometimes overlooked? I recently asked someone, ‘Why didn’t you question why there were no SEO requirements?’ Their response? ‘What do you mean? I’ve been here for a year, and I’ve never seen a ticket come in with SEO requirements on it.’ That was surprising.
It turned out that the requirements were originally on the back of a document. Over time, as it was photocopied again and again, someone missed a step and didn’t copy both sides. Eventually, the SEO requirements disappeared entirely. All because of something as simple as a missing page!
Another crucial aspect of this is quality assurance and review. As part of web effectiveness and search audits, one of the first things I ask teams is, ‘Can you show me your QA instructions?’ I can probably count on one hand—with three fingers missing—the number of times I’ve actually found a QA instruction included. If there are no QA instructions, how do we expect things to be tested properly?
These days, with so much automated testing, if nobody writes a test case, chances are it won’t get done. The system will execute tasks as programmed, but without a QA process, no one is checking to ensure that unique parameters are in place. A proper test case should include a couple of different scenarios for various page types to confirm the implementation is correct.
Another crucial aspect is quality assurance across multiple markets. When implementing a change for one market—say, the U.S.—we need to ensure it doesn’t break something for other markets. A common issue in translation management is when an update for one region, like the U.S., inadvertently overwrites content for other countries. This can happen because someone forgot to check a box that prevents overwriting existing translations, which then triggers a workflow for localization. It’s not intentional—people want to do a good job—but sometimes they just don’t know the full implications of a change.
Bill Scully (48:32)
Most people want to do a good job. It’s almost always an issue of unclear requirements, lack of training, or missing tools.
Bill Hunt (48:45)
Exactly. If we all receive even basic training to ask, ‘Could this change break something elsewhere?,’ it could make a big difference. I remember emphasizing specific trigger words—like ‘JavaScript,’ ‘refresh,’ or ‘rebuild’—so that whenever someone heard those words, it would prompt them to ask key questions. ‘Does this impact other markets? Could it have unintended side effects?’ These are the kinds of checks we need to be mindful of to ensure that websites remain effective.
At the end of the day, we’re all in this together. No one is out there trying to break things on purpose, but mistakes happen when people don’t have clear requirements, proper training, or systems in place for double-checking changes. The more we can work toward alignment and rigorous quality assurance, the more effective and resilient our websites will be.
Bill Scully (50:07)
That’s great. I think this is a good discussion. Do you have any final thoughts?
Bill Hunt: Yeah, absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head. The topic of ensuring proper workflows and minimizing errors is critical. We can’t emphasize enough how important it is to continuously review and improve our processes. The better we do this, the more effective our websites will be in achieving their purpose.
Bill Scully (50:35)
SEO shouldn’t be done in a silo. I want to start training myself to think more about customer acquisition, sales, and overall web effectiveness instead of just using the term SEO. So, we’re going to start using “web effectiveness” as its replacement.
Bill Hunt (50:58)
Yes, improving web effectiveness.
Bill Scully (51:01)
We hope you’re finding value in our conversations. If you’re enjoying the show, we’d really appreciate it if you could take a moment to rate and review the podcast.
We’d also love for you to connect with us on LinkedIn and X. Plus, we have a free Facebook group where you can join the conversation. We also offer training—Bill, you’ve mentioned this before. Do you have an update on that?
Bill Hunt (52:00)
Yes, we’re working on a pre-sign-up for a new program: SEO for Programmers. The idea is to look at SEO from a developer’s perspective.
Bill Scully (52:24)
That sounds great. Can you take a minute to describe what the training will cover?
Bill Hunt (52:24)
Sure. I’ve been developing modular, role-based courses for a while. One of the things I’ve noticed is that many CEOs and engineers tend to view SEO as a black box. I wanted to break down that misconception and clearly explain how search engines work and why it matters to them.
I’ve shifted my approach to focus on how developers think—helping them identify the challenges themselves. Too often, there’s a disconnect between SEO teams and developers, leading to friction over things like tag manager injections or schema implementation. Instead of saying, this is the right way to do it, I’m focusing on explaining a better, more efficient way that aligns with how developers approach their work.
That’s the goal: to bridge the gap between SEO and the developer community. I believe this training can make a real difference and help us create positive change.
Bill Scully (55:18)
That makes a lot of sense—shifting the conversation from just SEO to web effectiveness. And I like the idea of framing it from a developer’s perspective. Looking forward to seeing how it all comes together. Hope you have a great rest of your day.
Bill Hunt (55:30)
Thanks, everyone. Bye.