Search engine optimization is something that can generally be done by a one expert, an outside consulting team, or several marketing professionals. However, bigger brands cannot simply rely on the legwork of one or a few seasoned professionals to help them rank better in the search engines when there are so many other employees that can influence SEO.
An organization that understands that everything they put online should be positioned so that it provides for a good end-user experience but also is SEO-friendly will take advantage of low hanging ranking opportunities. While not everyone in an organization needs to become an SEO expert, educating the design, public relations, social media and content publishing teams as to the basics of SEO can help save time, improve rankings and ultimately increase sales.
Below are some strategies to help your organization infuse more SEO into its day-to-day operations so that you are always focusing on the bigger picture.
Establish Your SEO Team Leader
If your brand is to help communicate the importance of SEO organization-wide, a SEO team leader should be positioned to map out and manage the process. This person should have excellent communication skills, have an advanced understanding of SEO and its implementation, and be trusted enough by the higher-ups to design and carry-out a plan.
The SEO team leader will also be responsible for implementing measurement metrics and defining goals so that everyone is clear on what the purpose of the SEO strategy is and how goal accomplishment will be measured.
Showcase Opportunity through Lost Revenue
Admittedly, some old school CEOs or marketing managers may not be open to the idea of implementing marketing practices that take 3-6 months to gain traction. If the SEO plan was not set forth by these individuals then it may be the responsibility of the SEO team leader to identify, through data, how the lack of SEO in the organization is negatively affecting the bottom line.
Using metrics such as competitor rankings, traffic generation and estimated revenue gains as they are tied to SEO is a good start to proving the value of the efforts. By sharing industry research or case studies that showcase the benefits of SEO the higher ups may come to realize the importance of SEO and understand how it equates to profit.
Educating Key Players
Once the green light is given from company executives the education process begins. The SEO team leader can create SEO training courses or pull together resources from authorities in the field and assign their articles as required reading. As mentioned above, these design, public relations, social media and content publishing teams need not be experts but should have a solid understanding of how to optimize content, incorporate keywords into their work, and have the common goal of increasing rankings.
Much of the educational foundation for these key players will involve basic things like the correct way to implement title tags and meta descriptions into published content, alt tags for pictures, mentions of keywords in content, keyword research (likely supplied by the SEO team leader), preferred content distribution outlets, consistency in marketing across all departments, and the importance of earning links and implementing links into external public relations content.
This list will obviously grow as the education of the key players grows, but initially the educational component should seek to infuse basic on-page SEO expectations so that the SEO team leader doesn’t have to go through every piece of published online content and make sure it meets SEO guidelines.
Prove Efforts through Metrics
As the SEO team leader will have established how they will measure success before kicking off the campaign, the metrics will be in place to determine how well the organization-wide SEO campaign is going. Setting goals in analytics, establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) and determining ROI are all metrics that can be established to identify the success of the campaign.
The expectations of a successful SEO campaign should be established long before it is begun and the short and long term goals should be understood by all of the key players and the executive team so that everyone is on the same page.
Use the Right Tools
In order to make SEO a part of your organization, you’ve got to make sure you’re using the proper tools.
Take a look at a list of the best SEO tools that experts recommend.
Conclusion
A company-wide SEO strategy can often be a difficult thing to organize. However, pulling together a strong team of SEO experts who can prove the value of a campaign and provide metrics to showcase revenue opportunities can greatly help executives understand the importance of giving the go ahead.
From there, an ongoing education plan will have to be developed and carried out so all the key players understand their role in the grand scheme of things.
Metrics should be used again to show progress and to prove that the efforts of the entire marketing team are working towards traffic and lead generation, increased rankings and increased revenues.
Finally, make sure that you’re using the best tools to help you succeed.
