December 25th, 2006 - Why SEO and Corporate Marketing (often) Don’t Mix
A lot of the marketing managers that I meet express a similar frustration: “I’ve got the most popular product in the marketplace, but I’m nowhere near the top of search listings.” Making matters worse, the top listings are filled by unprofessional web pages from obscure companies. When it comes to search, you’re being out-optimized by the small fries.
You only need to see one part-time webmaster achieving more online eyeballs than a Fortune 500 company to recognize the power of SEO. There’s no strange alchemy that enables a small outfit to out-rank a large company. In fact, some factors work in favor of the larger enterprise:
- An established corporation has more resources to get the job done
- Despite the autocratic nature of the Web, money does help buy search relevance, and larger companies have bigger online marketing budgets
- While it certainly doesn’t guarantee success, having a strong brand offline makes it much easier to build a strong brand online. Web searchers value brands they recognize.
- The large company has more opportunities to parley newsworthy items (new ad campaign, financial reports, etc.) into search-friendly content
- Large companies typically have a richer network of partner or affiliate sites that can be leveraged to generate more links to their site.
So how come some big company sites are buried in the search results? Most commonly, the barrier to search performance is internal, organizational challenges. SEO is a cross-functional activity that doesn’t work well with silo-like teams built on traditional marketing disciplines. Consider the various departments involved:
- Your designers must create a layout that is search friendly. Reliance on Flash or excessive use of graphics can limit your search saturation.
- Your developers must produce search-friendly code. A site with multiple session parameters may not get indexed.
- Your content contributors must include your target keywords with the right relevance and prominence.
- Your public relations efforts should extend to online link-building as well as offline awareness building.
- Your IT team will be required to provide timely web server statistics – vital to ensure that your SEO efforts are working.
For some organizations, that’s just the beginning of a long list that also includes corporate communications, change management, legal, and others.
It all points to one of those cross-functional projects that tend to get perpetually mired in bureaucracy, plagued by political motivations, or most commonly, classified as “low priority” due to lack of support, endorsement, or understanding. But it can be done. Some forethought, coupled with good planning and communication, can create a smooth process framework. A very small educational effort can yield a team of SEO-skilled contributors. When these things work together you’ll have the pleasure of watching your web pages climb in search rankings, leading to more business generated from your web channel.
Start with a Plan: Groups will feel less threatened by activities they can independently review and understand. Create a simple-yet-detailed plan that summarizes the need, the benefits, and the required activities. Spell out each group’s role and why they are critical to the overall effort. Set clear milestones and communications. Include estimated dates and resource requirements. Distribute the document, have a review meeting, and then plan for a follow-up discussion.
Sell the ROI: A compelling business case is tough to ignore. Think beyond “more traffic” to anticipated conversion rates. Calculate a target range for cost-per-conversion. How does the cost of that lead/sale/download compare to your other marketing methods? These comparisons can sometimes be staggering, but also be careful that your estimates are achievable. It’s better to consult an expert than to hazard a guess which you may be accountable for later on.
Focus on Process: If your website has never been optimized for search, or if you’re conducting a new site launch or a significant redesign, it warrants a significant SEO audit and likely quite a few changes to achieve the desired level of optimization. But for day-to-day content management, you want to ensure you have embedded SEO best practices into your core processes and workflows. Doing so ensures that your keyword strategy is applied consistently by those who create, review and produce online content, and that often overlooked components like metatags and alt text are fully optimized. Finally, this process should include feedback mechanisms to ensure the strategy is working. This means finding a way to get the right depth of information to the right team members on a consistent basis.
Find a Champion: I have yet to find a corporation that doesn’t have a C-level executive asking his marketing lead “why aren’t we number one in Google when you search on (insert category name)?” With a bit of education and expectation-setting, this person can help endorse your project and provide the official “buy-in” that’s often required to make any project successful.
Get Help: Sometimes those internal silos can be outright fortresses. In these circumstances, the impartial objectivity of an outsider can be a benefit. Free from political affiliations, a skilled agency or consultant can help bring each party to the table with a ruthless focus on getting the SEO results you need. In choosing the right partner, you’ll want to look for more than a list of the #1 rankings they’ve achieved. Your selection criteria should include:
- What methods or processes do they have to facilitate projects involving stakeholders from multiple business divisions?
- What unique tactics will they use to optimize your site? This is your chance to unearth any marginal tactics (cloaking, doorway pages, etc.) that could potentially get you in trouble with the search engines. While smaller companies may be willing to take some risks, you’ll want to ensure your SEO efforts are conducted with complete integrity.
With some time and patience, you’ll have created a multi-disciplinary SEO team that will put your company in a good position to rise in the search rankings. Also, you’ll have embedded some SEO best practices that will have lasting effects.