---
title: "SEO for CEOs and Managing Directors: How to Steer It"
description: "SEO for CEOs and managing directors: why search visibility belongs on the leadership agenda and how to judge keywords, content, tech and your SEO team."
url: https://www.hamed.de/en/seo-for-managing-directors/
language: en
author: Hamed Farhadian
published: 2023-06-10
updated: 2026-10-17
---

# SEO for CEOs and managing directors – Search visibility is a leadership job – not just a tech task.

As a CEO or business owner you don’t need to do SEO yourself, but you do need to understand and steer it. The key decisions aren’t technical: which search terms you want to be found for, which customer need sits behind them, and who owns content and the technical side together. If you hand that off without being able to judge the results, you’re working with a black box.

## Why isn’t paid search enough on its own?

Ads buy you visibility instantly, but only for as long as you pay. SEO takes longer and builds visibility that lasts.

As a CEO you deal with everything that drives your company’s success – including search engine marketing (SEM). SEM is the umbrella term for two disciplines: SEO (search engine optimisation, i.e. unpaid rankings) and SEA (paid search advertising, for example [Google Ads](https://www.hamed.de/en/google-ads-expert-hamburg/)).

If search isn’t your area and you want quick wins, it’s tempting to put everything into ads. SEO then looks like an optional extra. I think that’s a big and, unfortunately, expensive mistake – and I see it again and again, even at large companies: they have strong products and capable teams, yet without paid ads they’re barely visible on Google.

| | SEA (e.g. Google Ads) | SEO |
|---|---|---|
| Effect | immediately after launch | after weeks to months |
| Cost | per click, as long as the campaign runs | work on content and tech, no click costs |
| When you stop | visibility disappears at once | rankings stay as long as the page is good |
| User trust | labelled as an ad | feels like a recommendation from Google |

## Why is SEO so hard for leaders to grasp?

SEO has more moving parts than paid search. There’s no single activity called “optimising for search”. It’s made up of many small and large tasks – technical work, content, structure, links – that all add up to your company being visible online.

That makes it hard to keep track. All the more reason to understand the one task everything else builds on: keyword research. It tells you which terms your customers search for and which of them actually matter for your business.

## What does a keyword have to do with your customer?

Every keyword hides a need. That need creates search intent – what the person actually wants to achieve with their search. If you want to rank high for a term, you need to understand that intent and deliver exactly that on your page.

For you, that means knowing your audience’s needs and using your choice of keywords to position yourself clearly. Otherwise you lose the customer who just found you.

### My own example: SEO expert or SEO agency?

I learned this first-hand. My German website hamed.de ranked on page 1 of Google for both “SEO-Experte” (SEO expert) and “SEO-Agentur” (SEO agency) – with the same page. Sounds great at first. From the customer’s point of view, it wasn’t.

- People searching for an **SEO agency** usually expect a company with a team that takes over the whole job.
- People searching for an **SEO expert** are more likely looking for one person they can hire directly.

When companies found me via “SEO expert” and I mentioned in the conversation that I also run an agency, many lost interest. I first had to convince them I wasn’t a “typical” agency. Today I keep the two apart: hamed.de is me as a person, and the agency is SEOeffekt.

## What happens when copy gets bent out of shape for keywords?

The right keywords shape how customers see you. If you think you can simply outsource that decision, don’t be surprised when SEO doesn’t deliver what you hoped for.

It also doesn’t help to use the right keywords and then fail to convince with your copy. Your customer is pleased to have found a relevant page – and all the more disappointed when the text doesn’t speak to them. Then they move on to a competitor.

I keep seeing copy that has been trimmed to hit a certain number of keyword repetitions. That’s called keyword stuffing: overloading a text with search terms. It sometimes brings short-term clicks, but:

- readers bounce and don’t come back,
- Google recognises the pattern and demotes such pages – keyword stuffing is explicitly listed in Google’s spam policies,
- your brand looks cheap.

Good SEO copy takes finesse: the keyword sits where it belongs – in the title, the main heading and the first sentences – and the rest reads as if a person wrote it for a person.

## Why do content and tech need one shared team?

It isn’t just about the text. The technical implementation has to be right too. A great SEO copywriter often doesn’t see the technical side, and a developer rarely has a feel for persuasive copy. You’ll seldom find both in one person.

| Content | Technical side |
|---|---|
| Keywords and search intent | Title, meta description and heading structure |
| Copy that persuades and answers questions | Page speed and Core Web Vitals |
| Structure, examples, proof | Internal links and clean URLs |
| Freshness | Structured data, indexing, redirects |

So don’t cut corners by leaving SEO to a developer alone or a copywriter alone. Your website needs to be built – in content and in code – to be the best answer online for your audience’s need. That’s how you earn strong visibility on Google and customers who keep finding you.

## What does AI search change for CEOs?

Now that Google shows AI Overviews above many results and lots of people ask ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity directly, a good ranking alone is no longer enough. Your company should also be cited as a source there.

The good news: the fundamentals are the same. Clear positioning, content that answers questions directly and a clean technical setup help on Google and in AI search alike. Optimising for AI answers is called GEO (generative engine optimisation). I explain the differences in [GEO vs. SEO](https://www.hamed.de/en/geo-vs-seo/).

## Which questions should you ask your SEO team?

These questions keep you in control – whether you work with an in-house team or an agency:

1. Which buying-intent search terms do we want to be found for, and where do we rank for them today?
2. How many enquiries or orders come from organic search – and how is that trending?
3. What was implemented last month, and why exactly that?
4. What’s the most important next step, and what do we expect from it?
5. Are we mentioned in AI answers on our topics?
6. Where do we lose visitors before they get in touch?

If your team can’t answer these in plain language, that doesn’t mean you lack expertise. It means they lack transparency.

## Why is SEO the CEO’s business?

I strongly recommend that every CEO and business owner builds a basic understanding of search engine optimisation. It’s the only way to judge and improve the work of your in-house team or external agency. Visibility on Google and in AI search now decides whether customers find you at all – that responsibility shouldn’t end up in the wrong hands or be ignored.

You don’t need to become an SEO pro. For founders, CEOs, business owners and people responsible for SEO, I offer [SEO coaching](https://www.hamed.de/en/seo-coaching/): with little time investment you learn the key building blocks and get tools to steer, check and improve the work in your company. Especially if you already have an SEO team or an agency: stay in the driver’s seat.

If you’d rather start with an assessment of where your company stands, [SEO consulting](https://www.hamed.de/en/seo-consulting/) is the right first step. For a quick first impression, use the SEO Compass: enter your address, answer a few short questions and within a few minutes you’ll see where your biggest levers are.

**SEO Compass: check for free where your website stands on Google and in AI search:** https://kompass.seoeffekt.de/?quelle=hamed.de-en-seo-for-managing-directors-md&lang=en

You can read more about how I work as an [SEO consultant in Hamburg](https://www.hamed.de/en/seo-consultant-hamburg/).

[Read more articles on the blog](https://www.hamed.de/en/blog/)

## Questions CEOs ask about SEO

### Do I need to know SEO myself as a CEO?

You don’t need to do it, but you should understand it. Know which search terms your company wants to be found for, how to recognise good work and which metrics matter. Then you can steer your team or agency instead of just filing their reports.

### SEO or Google Ads – where should I start?

It isn’t either-or. Google Ads brings clicks immediately and is great for testing search terms. SEO takes longer but keeps working when you stop topping up the budget. Many companies do best with both and shift budget once organic rankings carry the load.

### How can I tell whether my SEO agency is doing a good job?

Look for three things: they report on enquiries and revenue, not just rankings and clicks. They explain clearly what they did and why. And they can justify why this particular task is the most important one right now. If any of these is missing, ask.

### How quickly does SEO work?

First improvements often show after a few weeks; stable rankings for competitive terms usually take months. How fast it goes for you depends on your starting point, competition and how quickly changes get implemented. Nobody can guarantee rankings – anyone who promises that isn’t reputable.

### Who implements SEO if we don’t have an in-house team?

An external partner can take that on. Hands-on work with me runs through my agency [SEOeffekt](https://www.seoeffekt.de/). What matters is that someone in your company sets the goals and evaluates the results.

## Contact

- Contact form: https://www.hamed.de/en/seo-for-managing-directors/#kontakt
- Email: hamed@hamed.de
- Phone: +49 40 3556 7813