Some SEO companies that I know of either offer recommendations in written form, to be handed off to the developers to implement, while others actually get their hands dirty and make the changes for the client. I was hoping to poll our audience of SEO companies to see how they do it. Do you make the coding changes or just offer written recommendations or do you do both?
Here is a poll:
A HighRankings Forum thread asks which is best and what is the best strategy. To me, it depends on the site, the working relationship with the owner and the developers and the knowledge of the SEOs making the recommendations.
You do not have to be a programmer to know SEO and make recommendations. But to implement SEO changes, you do need to know some programming, at least HTML. Plus, there are often issues and constraints that third-party SEO companies are not aware of when they ask to make SEO changes to a site. A developer has more of an intimate relationship with the site, knowing the ins and outs of that site and if a recommendation would be easy, hard, quick, or hurtful to a site. The best of both worlds would be to get a developer who is well versed in SEO to maintain your site day in and day out. But that is often not the case.
So, take the poll above and let us know how your SEO company primarily handles this.
Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.