Enterprise
SEO is a tricky thing. When a site has thousands upon thousands of
pages and miles of red tape to work through, getting the ball rolling on
an SEO campaign can take a lot of effort. Making any actual headway
with the campaign can take even more time. Here are four of the biggest
SEO challenges I’ve seen enterprise companies have to work through, and
how to help your company navigate the process.1. Have one person act as gatekeeper.
One of the biggest enterprise SEO challenges is that there are so many people involved in the process that nothing actually ends up getting done. While there should be a chain of command, you have to be able to delegate who needs what information when. Sometimes everyone, whether they should be involved in a certain component of the SEO campaign or not, is allowed to put their two cents in and that ends up stalling the process. Does your social media marketing manager really need to be on the call addressing technical errors on the site? Does the CEO really need to read and approve each blog post before it goes live? While you want to keep everyone on your team informed, someone needs to act as the gatekeeper of your SEO campaign. They decide who should be involved in which component of the SEO process, whose opinion is needed before taking the next step and so forth. Their job is to make sure too many chefs don’t ruin the soup!
2. Define your messaging strategy.
SEO is about driving more targeted traffic to your website and encouraging them to convert. If you don’t have a solid understanding of your messaging strategy, how can your SEO campaign make any difference? Before undertaking an SEO campaign you need to have a solid grasp on what direction your marketing is taking. What is your brand’s unique selling point? Who are your real online competitors and how does your website measure up to theirs? I’ve gone into meetings with enterprise companies before where the person I’m meeting with can’t answer these questions! If you want your SEO campaign, which will incorporate every element of marketing you currently employ, to work then you need to make sure everyone understands the marketing basics of your brand! Otherwise you risk having your SEO working outside of the rest of your marketing, or even working against it.
3. Get comfortable with your content marketing.
Even though you may be a big and established brand, you still need to invest in a content marketing strategy. Many enterprise companies think that their reputation should be enough to carry them through, but keep in mind that when a new visitor arrives on your site they don’t know your reputation! You need to prove yourself to new visitors time and time again that your company is the one they want to do business with. Creating thought-leadership content is not only going to cement your reputation as an industry leader among those that know and interact with your company, it is also going to help build consumer trust with new, potential customers and members of your target audience. Don’t be afraid to get a little creative with your content marketing. Publish daily blog posts, create a video marketing campaign, develop infographics, produce white papers and research studies—any and all content can be useful for SEO!
4. Understand who is responsible for implementing changes.
Much like the gatekeeper needs to delegate information regarding your SEO campaign, it’s also important that you understand who is responsible for implementing the onsite SEO changes. Will your SEO partner be given access to your site? Will you internal developers handle the changes? You don’t want any miscommunication here! I’ve seen enterprise companies make changes to their onsite SEO, only to have them undone by their hosting company who thought someone had hacked the site. They lost nearly 20 hours of work because they didn’t make sure everyone understood their role in the process.
It all comes down to communication. The right hand needs to know what the left is doing, but they both need to stay out of each other’s way when it comes time to get things done. If you want to get a successful SEO campaign implemented and properly executed then you can’t let office politics get in the way. Make sure everyone is onboard and understands their role and you’ll deal with much fewer holdups and headaches down the road.