Managing Entropy - Clarity '13 - Keith Goode

Managing Entropy

Keith L. GoodeSEO Technology LeadeDell, Global Online Team

Global Enterprise SEO in a Changing Landscape

2 Global Online - eDellManaging Entropy – Clarity ‘13

Self-Introduction

Keith L. Goode• SEO Technology Lead at Dell

• Former Director of SEO at Sparefoot

• Former SEM Manager at BDX

• Former SEO Team Lead at HomeAway

Connect with me:

Twitter: @keithgoode


Limited Liability

• The ideas and statements in this presentation do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Dell Inc. but are based on my personal experience in the SEO industry.

• Repeat after me: “Keith is not Dell. “


The Problem of Scalability in a Changing Landscape


ROI – Eating a Much Larger Elephant

• Proving ROI in larger organizations

• Proving ROI in larger organizations– Natural search attribution

amidst– Paid Search efforts– Traditional media outreach– Press releases– Social Media

– Scaling SEO activities across 100K+ page sites – Content Optimization– Link acquisition– Indexation– Canonicalization– Code optimization– Usability– Architecture/Navigation– Etc.


ROI – Eating a Much Larger Elephant

• Proving ROI in larger organizations– Natural search attribution

amidst– Paid Search efforts– Traditional media outreach– Press releases– Social Media

• Scaling SEO activities across 100K+ page sites

– Content Optimization– Link acquisition– Indexation– Canonicalization– Code optimization– Usability– Architecture/Navigation– Etc.


The bigger the pie doesn’t translate into bigger pieces

Ever-Present Budget Challenges

SEO

Marketing

Dev

IT

Facilities


The bigger the pie doesn’t translate into bigger pieces

Ever-Present Budget Challenges

SEO

Marketing

Dev

CMS

IT

Sys Admin

Facilities


The Changing Search Landscape

• Have you tried to do keyword research lately?

• What percentage of your keyword traffic is “Not Provided?” Are you at 100% yet?

• How’s that link-building going?

• … in fact, how is guest blogging, producing infographics, publishing press releases, and building widgets going for you?


Change is the only Constant in SEO

• 400+ algorithm changes per year at Google


These changes are killing traditional SEO

• “SEO Copywriting” is dead. Panda.

• Link building is dead. Penguin.


Post-Visit Insights are Threatened


Infographics/Micrographic Link Value Declining


Evolve or Become Extinct• As the accepted methods of SEO

change, enterprise, SMB, and agency tactics and strategies must change– Revenue is at risk– Reputation is at risk– Jobs are at risk– Risks increase by order of magnitude

with company size

• Here’s the secret: – Don’t focus on what you’ve lost.– Focus on the tools and tactics you

can still use– Move along and keep sane


Scaling SEO


Paul Bruemmer’s Guide to Building a Search Marketing Team – 2013

SVP, Marketing

Director of Search

SEO Manager

SEO Analyst

SEO Analyst

SEO Analyst

SEO Analyst

Paid Search

Manager

Paid Search Analyst

Paid Search Analyst

Paid Search Analyst

Paid Search Analyst

Paid Search Analyst

Social Media

Manager

Social Media Analyst





Search Guru

Business Intelligenc

e


The Problem with Multi-Touch Environments

Content StrategistDevelops content strategy to promote new products and services

Content WriterResearches product and integrates keywords into copy

SEO AnalystProvides keyword research, search volume estimates, and SEO recommendations.

SEO AgencyProvides infographics, guest posts on external blogs, blogger outreach, etc.

AnalystReviews natural search volume, keywords that receive traffic, etc.

Social MediaPromotes content via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.


The Problem with Multi-Touch Content

Content StrategistDevelops content strategy to promote new products and services

Content WriterResearches product and integrates keywords into copy

SEO AnalystProvides keyword research, search volume estimates, and SEO recommendations.

SEO AgencyProvides infographics, guest posts on external blogs, blogger outreach, etc.

AnalystReviews natural search volume, keywords that receive traffic, etc.

Social MediaPromotes content via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

What a Director or Business Owner Sees

$$$$

$$$$

$$$$

$$$$

$$$$

$$$$


Shift From Limited SEO-Concentration…

SEO

IT/Dev

Content

Marketing

Design


…because as unlimited growth isn’t sustainable or cost-effective…

SEO

IT/Dev

Content

Marketing

Design

Content

MarketingIT/Dev

Design

Content

Marketing

Design


… to an organization where SEO is everyone’s responsibility

SEO Knowledg

e Base

IT/Dev

Content

Marketing

Design


The Solution – Democratization of SEO


Embedding SEO Best Practices Globally

Content Strategist

Site Architect

SEO Governance

Marketer

SEO Educator

IT Director

Coder / Developer

Content Writer

Social Media

SEO Compliance

Public Relations


The SEO as an Educator


Brown-bag Lunch & Learn Series

• Great option for small-to-medium businesses

• Repurpose your link-building budget for paid lunches. ;-)

• Schedule monthly and plan your curriculum accordingly– Developers’ Lunch

– Best coding practices– Best architecture practices– New tags– Data Markup

– Writers’ Lunch– Keyword Research– Engaging readers

– Social Media Lunch– Etc.


Establish Search Curriculum


Integration of Search Requirements into IDPs

• Individual Development Plans (IDPs) can tie on-going education and extra activities to performance bonuses, end-of-year reviews, etc.

• Items like search certification, active blog posting, social media engagement, etc. can be included in IDPs.


Creating a Social Army – SMaC U

• If you want to create raving fans outside of your organization, foster the fans inside.

• Provide social media training, along with Brand training to ensure that the right messages are getting out there.

• Build a great product and trust that your employees will be your best cheerleaders.

• Offer specific training per social media outlet (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, G+, etc.)

• Establish guidelines and safeguards for the outliers.


Content Writing Best Practices

• Provide CMS Training

• Train in Brand Strategy

• Plug into the content lifecycle

• Provide training in SEO practices – keyword research, proper linking strategies, H1/H2 usage, etc.

• Writing for Scanners

• Proper labeling for media assets (images, videos, etc.)


Technical SEO Training for Devs/Architects

• Specialize training for coders and architects– Get really specialized if you

need to and offer to provide training for specific groups

– Reiterate why their jobs can and do impact the site’s ability to rank and attract traffic

– Encourage input. Less of the “you need to do this” approach and more of the “how can you help build a better site?” approach.

• Go over site standards, best practices, industry tips, etc.


Ongoing Work


The SEO as Search Governance

• Meetings, meetings and more freakin’ meetings…

• SEO should sit in on core Development meetings

• SEO should be included in the initial scoping of projects

• Sign-off by SEO should be required for all user-facing site changes


Establish site-wide Standards and Guidelines

Codify SEO best practices into a living document (i.e. electronic)


Don’t Reinvent the Wheel - Repurpose Industry Documents


Engaging SME’s

• You have people on staff who are experts in your products and/or services.– Provide incentive for

engaging in social media, blogs, forums, etc.

– Enable rel author and rel publisher tags to help promote them and to associate your site with them

– Provide brand, social, and SEO training

– Encourage outside speaking engagements

– Engage your social army to help promote them


Reiterate Basic SEO Copywriting Skills

• Addressing Page Elements– Page Titles– Meta-Descriptions

• Writing for Scanners

• Writing Kickass Content


Encourage Socializing Content

• You have your Social Army – Deploy it!


PR/Marketing

• Not much to say here. (Google has recently reduced the benefit of exact anchor text and followed links from press releases.)

• Review linking guidelines (i.e. no anchor text, limited dofollow, etc.) and verify that you are in compliance

• Encourage them to keep promoting the brand and the company. The bigger the brand, the better the domain strength, and the stronger each page is.


Planning


The SEO as a Prophet and Prognosticator


Ongoing Site Audits


Ongoing Site Audits


Look for Trends

• Omniture, Google Analytics

• Google Trends

• MozCast


Hypothesize, Test, Measure, Conclude

• Find the time to test hypotheses.

• Look for trends in analytics and try to find correlations and causations.

• Measure the positives and the negatives.

• Conclude what the best practices are going forward.


Keeping Apprised of Changes in the Industry


Google Algorithm Updates

• We’re fairly blind to this now. Thanks, Google, for taking yet one more insight away from us.


Revelation or Obfuscation?


Chatter on Webmaster Forums

• Monitor the chatter and see if you detect any trends that might affect you

• Get ideas for applying Matt Cutts’ “statements” into action


Correlation Studies


Blog Posts and News Sites

Blogs and Sites I Visit Daily/Weekly

• SearchEngineLand.com

• Moz.com

• SEObytheSEA.com

• WebmasterWorld.com

• Google Webmaster Central Blog

• SearchEngineJournal.com

• SearchEngineRoundtable.com

• Search Engine Roundtable

• seoClarity.net Insights


Conclusion

Conclusion


Be Mentally Flexible

• Let’s reiterate the obvious: change is the only constant in SEO

• Mental flexibility allows you to see new opportunities for traffic acquisition

• Listen, question, experiment and find each truth as it manifests


Be Operationally Nimble

• Help your organization understand the shifting nature of SEO– Be the reed not the oak– Changing course mid-course is merely a course-correction based

on environmental factors. Don’t panic, and don’t discount all of SEO because of it.

• Avoid getting into the habit of saying, “Well, what we’re doing now works.”


Keith Goode’s Obvious, but Somehow Meaningful, Tautology of the Day

It works until it doesn’t.


Always Be Learning

• You’ve established yourself as the Search expert. Make sure you stay that way.– Attend conferences (Congratulations! You’re here.)– Engage your local SEO’s via meetups and lunch meetings– Watch the Twittersphere and other social spheres– Read blogs … lots of them– Engage your support team at seoClarity


THANK YOU!


Backup Slides


Devs and Architects

• Codified guidelines and standards can address technical issues before they occur– Establish administrative controls over elements related to SEO

– On-page elements (H1, H2, …, alt, title, etc.)– Meta-tags (title, meta-description, meta-keywords, noindex, etc.)– Robots.txt and Sitemaps– Rel tags (canonical, prev, next, nofollow, etc.)– Internationalization (HREFLANG)– Regionalization of URLs

– Provide Internationalization Guidelines– I18N-readiness in markup– Using :lang() pseudo-class – Content direction control for right-to-left languages

– Stress the importance of clean code and script– Establish standards for page size, page speed and site speed


Architecture/Navigation

• Stress the importance of the free flow of “link juice” through site

• Crawlable Navigation– Links should point to your

most important pages and categories/departments

– 3-Click Rule– NO JAVASCRIPT!!– Respect the crawl budget

• Crawlable Breadcrumbs

• Related Product Links – Don’t be spammy!


URL Structure

• Standardize URL structure, canonicalization, and naming conventions

• Establish rules around ccTLD and subdomain usage

• Provide guidance for integrating and/or sunsetting acquired site URLs and domains

• Reiterate the importance of:

• Character limits

• Proximity of page filename to the root domain

• When to use hyphens vs. subfolders

• Truncating file extensions (*.html, *.aspx, etc.)

• Canonicalizing domain structure

• Localization of terms


Internal Links

• Amazon is a great example of how a site can use Related Product links and “Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed” links to distribute domain and page strength


Enabling Contextual Links

• Wikipedia also does a great job of providing links to related articles

• They also have perfected contextual interlinking between their pages


Enabling Socialization

• If you’ve got great content, make it shareable!


Narrative Science’s singularity


Inbound Marketing vs. Interruption Marketing