Two years ago I put together a post about what I thought was the perfect SEO firm. I revisited that post this morning as I was looking at one of our white boards that had a list of positions that we have filled and positions that we want to fill in the coming months. My list of positions required for good SEO has not changed a whole lot in the last couple of years, although some minor modifications are needed.

Project manager
Each client needs to have a primary source of contact. Access to the full team is important but they need to have one person who takes responsibility to ensure that all the efforts of the team are realized into results.

SEO
This can cover one or more positions, but obviously every SEO project needs at least one person who understands the concept of search engine optimization. It's a good idea to have at one SEO that is understands the algorithms intimately and another that can look at SEO more from a marketing perspective. Putting these two minds together can help craft a very strong page that will perform both for engines and visitors.

Copywriter
Arguably one of the most important positions in an SEO company. When it's all said and done it's the copy that has to do the job of selling the product or service while also maintaining a solid keyword focus. This is no easy task.

PPC
Using PPC as part of your SEO campaign produces several unique advantages. One, you can create a short-run PPC campaign to test keyword effectiveness. Two, PPC campaigns allow for measurable and trackable testing of conversions on SEO optimized pages. A lot of on-page changes can be made to improve conversion results which won't effect the overall optimization or ranking performance of the page.

Viral marketing
Viral marketing has become a staple component of successful SEO campaigns. Not only does it help a site gain traction but it also adds to the long-term performance from the number of links that a good viral campaign can generate.

Analytics
Every aspect of the SEO campaign can be analyzed, provided there is someone looking at all the data available. Once analyzed and interpreted, this data can help lay the course for changes, improvements and continued optimization to ensure that the campaign is running on all cylinders.

Client reports
The depth of reporting provided to clients varies. It is usually not necessary to have a human component to the client reports if this information can be gathered automatically as the result of some good programming.

Usability
The role of usability is to ensure that all optimized pages maintain a strong and consistent ability to engage the user, answer their questions and drive them to the conversion. Working with the analytics usability issues can be tested and used to increase conversion rates.

Link ninja
This is a different role altogether from the viral marketer mentioned above. This role constitutes overall link management. Keeping clients out of bad neighborhoods and obtaining hard-to-establish links of high value.

Web design
This position goes hand in hand with usability, but sometimes that's not enough and an entire site needs to be considerably reworked. The web designer works with all the other team members to produce a quality, user- and search-friendly website.

Programmer
The programmer can be used to to develop automated reporting features which can eliminate many hours of work every day. Additionally the programmer can play a role in create tools that can be used for viral marketing efforts.

Not all of these positions need to be carried out by different individuals. Many of these "positions" can overlap with others, depending on the workload. However each of the roles noted below should be integrated with the total SEO process. Each of these positions are a vital component to a solid SEO campaign.