Wow, this reads like it could be its own team org plan -- awesome story! Lots of really intriguing points, especially the final takeaway. Makes me wonder if even the simple act of having the folks who manage SEO and UX sit together could go a ways toward boosting mutual understanding and overlapping work; it can be so difficult to have an awareness for what you don't know you don't know. Thanks for sharing this!

"An act of poetic acrobatics" -- I love that description, so apt! It's really interesting to consider all the overlap between different work, teams, and roles (even those that don't immediately come to mind) and to keep in mind that there is a cohesive story to be told, in the end. Excellent insight, thank you for sharing!

We've been looking at the relationship between SEO & UX a bit more closely lately on the blog. Our good pal Cyrus started the wheels turning with a tweet: https://twitter.com/CyrusShepard/status/748296076411625473

...and that morphed into a Whiteboard Friday idea, which was filmed and posted here: https://moz.com/blog/ux-vs-seo-whiteboard-friday

We shared the story of one site that enjoyed rapid growth and that subsequently battled with managing that UX/SEO relationship on Thursday.

And it's hard, right? UX and SEO teams often operate independently of one another, and may make decisions that affect one another's work. Sometimes it's a "hindsight is 20/20" situation. Sometimes the answer is so radical and impactful that you may want to settle for a "safe" alternative.

I'd imagine many of you have encountered some big issues with user experience and search optimization in your day-to-day over the years. What's the most difficult situation you've encountered with this? How did you resolve it? (I'd bet money on there being some really creative solutions out there :). Is there a particularly challenging situation you're struggling with now that you'd want to share & crowdsource ideas for?