Core Competencies

Some competencies are based on job-level and others are based on your role.
In general, the scope of impact and expected behaviors expands as job level increases.


Levels

Title
Title
Title
Level
Scope of Impact
Expected Behaviors
Individual
Own work
Learns/Develops
Intermediate
Work within a team
Grows/Acts
Senior
Cross-functional work
Models & implements
Director
Across department
Drives the framework, strategy, and plans
Leadership
Across company
Develops goals, frameworks, and strategies


Values & Culture Competencies



Values & Culture

Title
Title
Role
Competency
Content Writer
Reads and re-reads values and culture docs regularly
Senior Content Writer
Noticeable shift in work habits to better align with values and culture
Content Strategist
Exemplifies values and cultures
Editor
Coach, advocate, publicly praise team members making steps towards alignment
Senior Editor
Maintain high hiring bar, promote writers that align with our values, discuss during 1:1s
Project Managers
Support and coach next generation of Project Managers to uplift, and instill culture
Director
Responsible for team alignment with culture and values
Leadership
Coach, support, and promote leaders that exemplify culture and values


Content Production



Content Quality

Title
Title
Role
Competency
Content Writer
Strives to learn our systems and produce the highest quality content possible
Senior Content Writer
Demonstrates strong understanding of content research, who the audience is, consistently writes content that is more valuable than any other page Google could show for the keyword
Content Strategist
Project / industry SME, participates in relevant social communities, running project meetings, soliciting pitches from other writers connecting topic to audience + revenue drivers, coaching writers, maintaining project about, educating editors on positioning mistakes
Editor
Maintaining high quality standards, coaching writers, interfacing with Content Strategist for questions on positioning
Senior Editor
Empowering content team, QA editors and ensure team is consistently publishing the most valuable content for every keyword
Project Managers
Responsible for client knowledge transfer between client & Senior Editor, QA Senior Editors
Director
Responsible for quality standards, systems and processes
Leadership
Champion content quality systems and culture


Content Relevance


Title
Title
Role
Competency
Content Writer
Consistently integrates variations into contents
Senior Content Writer
Writes compelling metadata balancing keywords, clickbait and social proof
Content Strategist
Drives meta strategy, builds content series meta templates, balances selling the click, keyword usage, and social proof
Editor
Identifies missed variation opportunities, maintains high standards for metas
Senior Editor
Leads on-page optimization training, works with Content Strategist to develop meta templates, QAs editors
Project Managers
Tracks project KPIs, QAs Senior Editors, verifies implementation standards
Director
Drives company wide optimization systems including pre-publishing, post-publishing, conducting experiments and managing roll outs of new processes, tools and systems
Leadership
Champion a strong SEO culture


Internal Linking


Title
Title
Role
Competency
Content Writer
Follows and implements instructions successfully
Senior Content Writer
Good understanding of internal link value and of content site map, consistently looks for and finds internal linking opportunities
Editor
Strong understanding of internal link value, knows every page of content on the site, identifies missed internal links in-content
Senior Editor
Consistent training and importance of internal linking strategy, finds internal linking opportunities editors missed, acts as extra pair of eyes to Project Manager on developing strategy
Project Managers
Designs and PMs implementation of internal linking, trains team, verifies implementation
Director
Develops company wide internal linking strategy, identify and integrates tools into workflow, implementation, and verification strategies
Leadership
Champion strong SEO culture, hold organization accountable via project metrics

Content Operations

Content operations are the systems, processes, and documents that enable our team to publish hundreds of pages of high quality, naturally ranking pages of content per month.


Standard Operating Procedures


Title
Title
Role
Competency
Content Writer
Follows directions and seeks to understand why
Senior Content Writer
Understands why and begins to notice and voice improvements
Editor
Helps senior editors implement small process changes
Senior Editor
Consistently keeps a series of process documents up to date
SEO Manager
Works with content operations to integrate improved seo best practices into content production processes, verifies implementations
Project Manager
Responsible for a broad range of process docs themselves, and via their team, holds themselves and editors to consistent updates
Director
Responsible for information management systems, building strong process culture
Leadership
Champion process culture, promote process oriented leaders, hold organizations accountable by dog fooding


Project Management


Title
Title
Role
Competency
Content Writer
Follows directions and seeks to understand why
Senior Content Writer
Understands why and begins to notice and voice improvements
Editor
Understanding of Airtable configurations, Notion, Slack, Outlook, and attempts mailbox best practices
Senior Editor
Strong understanding of Airtable, demonstrates mailbox best practices
SEO Manager
Responsible for SEO tools and reporting systems
Project Manager
Accountable for their teams usage of project management systems, maintaining Zaps,
Director
Identify dependencies, reduce risk, manage backups, pilot new technology, manage system migrations
Leadership
Hold organization accountable through efficiency and results KPI


Content Writing


Content Writers
    Free of punctuation, grammar, syntax and spelling errors
    Consistently meets deadlines of 2,500 words per day + revisions
    Implements technical writing requirements into first drafts
    Understanding of who the audience is

Senior Content Writers
    Demonstrates consistent ability to truly understand the audience, and what they need to know next to connect the topic to revenue drivers
    Strong understanding of internal linking strategy, and consistently identifies opportunities to link within pages
    Consistent ability to write compelling metas and titles that balance keyword usage, click bait, and social proof
    Knows what they don't know and seeks information in alignment with  Effective Communication  and  Self Service First , and  Manager of One  principals
    Coaches and strategizes with new writers

Content Strategists
    Track for talented senior writers that aren't great fits for editing
    Acts as project SME for other writers
    Solicits pitches from other writers about connecting their topic to audience & to revenue drivers
    Helps editors run project meetings
    Helps create project knowledge bases
    Acts as project and industry SME
    Embeds themselves into relevant communities
    Builds and maintains client about document
    Develops and maintains effective content research processes documents
    Helps editors run meetings & collaborates to ensure editors identify and address positioning and messaging issues
    Solicits pitches on topic, audience and connecting to the project revenue driver, coaches writers on messaging, positioning

Editors
    High attention to detail leading to an error rate of .5 issues per article or less
    Consistently meets editing deadlines of 5 first drafts & 5 revisions per day

Senior Editors
    Integrates company culture into training, mentoring and coaching
    Staff reporting to Senior Editors consistently demonstrate high levels of alignment with Content Distributions  Values ,  Effective Communication ,  Self Service First , and  Manager of One  principles
    Consistently evaluating systems, processes, and culture, identifying areas of improvement, and rolling out iterative solutions
    Understanding of every page of content, and future content calendar for each project they manage
    Process docs owned by Senior Editor are consistently kept up to date as process changes
    Weekly 1:1 with editors and bi-weekly 1:1 with writers
    HR functions including hiring, terminations, and organizing team payments
    Recruits, identifies, and builds the next generation of leaders within Content Distribution to hand off responsibilities to, enabling continued career growth

Project Managers
    Effective tracking of project action items, owner, and due dates
    QA senior editors for quality and optimizations standards
    Strong functional competency in nearly all roles reporting to Project Manager
    Strong understanding of ranking factors including site structure, internal linking, on-page optimizations.
    Manages development contractors to implement website best practices
    The team working for project managers demonstrate high levels of success in their roles
    Consistent ability to overcome known and unknown obstacles
    Manages and administrates CMS including Airtable, Zapier, Slack and Notion
    Projects under management consistently meet traffic acquisition and growth goals