The Essentials to Modern Enterprise SEO
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Mike King, Founder and Managing Director, iPullRank
ModernEnterpriseSEO
One of the Top SEOs in the Universe
An artist and a technologist, all rolled into one, Michael King recently founded
boutique digital marketing agency, iPullRank. Mike consults with companies all
over the world, including brands ranging from SAP, American Express, HSBC,
SanDisk, General Mills, and FTD, to a laundry list of promising startups and small
businesses.
Mike has held previous roles as Marketing Director, Developer, and tactical SEO
at multinational agencies such as Publicis Modem and Razorļ¬sh. Effortlessly
leaning on his background as an independent hip-hop musician, Mike King is a
dynamic speaker who is called upon to contribute to conferences and blogs all
over the world.
KEY TAKEAWAY: IāVE WORKED ON A
TON OF ENTERPRISE BRANDS
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Over $1 Billion in
Incremental
Revenue
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Who We Are
Based in NYC 6 Years Old
15 Employees Network of 100+
Content Creators
Founded by
Mike King
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The Most Important Point from that Slide
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Over $1 Billion in
Incremental
Revenue
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Agenda
ModernEnterpriseSEO
ā The State of Enterprise SEO
ā Key Winners in Enterprise SEO
ā Common Enterprise SEO
Problems & Solutions
ā Our Approach to Enterprise SEO
ā Enterprise SEO Strategies & Tactics
Worth Considering
ā A Word from Our Sponsor
ā Q&A
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What Makes a Company
āEnterpriseā?
ModernEnterpriseSEO
āBecause of the large digital
footprint and technology
scale, enterprise companies
need SEO solutions that are
versatile, advanced,can work
over long periods of time and
across various use cases.ā
iPullRank, Modern Enterprise
SEO Guide
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What Makes it Enterprise SEO?
Business Size Website SizeBusiness Structure
(lines of business)
You can be a smaller company with enterprise problems with your site is big enough.
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How does Enterprise SEO Differ from SMB SEO?
ScaleNavigating Organizations
Itās far less about being cutting edge. Itās far more about convincing people to do basic things.
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For the Enterprise, SEO Cannot be Isolated
YPOSEOEducation
Organic Search is all about giving visibility to content at different stages of the user journey.
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Forecasting ROI for SEO
YPOSEOEducation
It is not diļ¬cult to forecast overall ROI from SEO. However it can be diļ¬cult to predict the impact of any given SEO tactic. The best way to
determine the ROI from a speciļ¬c tactic is through split testing. However, projections are a requirement in the enterprise environment.
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The Enterprise Doesnāt Like to Wait for Compound Returns
MODERNENTERPRISESEO
Organic Search is a channel of content marketing. And both the ROI and cost per acquisition goes down
dramatically over time whereas the cost of paid channels stays ļ¬xed or increases. Enterprises like to have
this, but they donāt like to wait for it.
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Key Winners in Enterprise SEO
Enterprise Dominate the SERPs
ModernEnterpriseSEO
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Google Has a Bias Towards Brands
"Brands are the solution, not the problem.
Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.ā
- Eric Schmidt
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Amazon
ModernEnterpriseSEO
If youāve ever searched for anything you wanted to buy, Amazon will often rank in one of the top 3 positions with a
category for the product. Because generic searches like ādirt bikesā trigger category page results, Amazon can take
all their ādirt bikeā products and make a category of it. After doing that about 350,000 times, Amazon can own
virtually any keywords for which it has products.
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Bankrate
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Bankrate created a glossary resource that not only targets keywords related to the terms being deļ¬ned but also quick
answer results. The format of using the ļ¬rst heading to ask a question and then answering in a short paragraph is
the perfect way to get picked up for quick answers and āpeople also askā results. This content is followed by a longer
explanation that helps target even more keywords in traditional Organic Search results.
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Nerdwallet
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Thereās always a ābestā option when youāre on a mission to save money. Nerdwallet positions their content around
the intent to ļ¬nd the best options from credit cards, savings accounts, and even timing out a TV purchase. The ābestā
modiļ¬er allows NerdWallet to rank better for the more niche keywords while still targeting the broad terms.
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Home Depot
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Home Depot recognized that the home improvement shopping experience differs from ordering an item online. The
local stores are critical to their business because people often come in to buy supplies and get help. Each location
has a unique landing page with a crafted copy to give them the best opportunity to rank locally.
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Zillow
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Zillow realized that when it comes to living arrangements, location is king. They have dedicated pages that are as
broad as state level and as local as individual zipcodes. They can offer something to someone moving to a new state
and still deciding on location or someone looking to move to be next to their favorite taco shop.
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TripAdvisor
ModernEnterpriseSEO
TripAdvisor leverages their users for content. Threads of user generated content often rank with contributors on the
site writing in-depth responses. However, UGC isnāt the only strategy as there are designated pages for each location
and sections like āattractionsā and ānightlifeā. Moreover, at the bottom of these pages, Q&A style content gives
TripAdvisor a chance to rank for quick answer results and queries using questions (often seen in voice search).
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Healthline
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Healthline specializes in Your Money or Your Life (YMYL) content. As such, they need to have reliable experts who
write and review their medical content. Their top page on how to lose weight is a great example of this strategy
paying off. Their āevidence basedā badge also tells readers the article they found is scientiļ¬c in nature rather than
discussing a fad diet.
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Indeed
Indeedās collection of career opportunities categorized in a variety of ways allows them to create dedicated pages to ļ¬elds,
locations, speciļ¬c titles, etc. Not only do they rank for the long tail keywords like āmarketing jobs NYC,ā but they also outperform on
generic terms like āremote jobsā simply because of a great tagging structure.
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eBay
eBay leverages its authority to boost pages via internal links. With countless pages to link from, every page directs SEO value to
other valuable pages on the site.
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Yelp
Yelp realized that the ānear meā modiļ¬er was very popular in the local business and food industry. So everything location based on
Yelp.com became ānear me.ā This works great within the app as users often want a place they can travel to (at least they used to),
but it also does a great job of targeting all the ānear meā terms in Organic Search.
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Essential Knowledge: Content Management Systems and
Frankenstein CMSs
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Enterprise sites have a lot more pages than a local business or even medium sized company, and because of this
more robust content management systems are needed. Not only are these CMSās able to handle more content, but
also provide other services to their clients.
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Essential Knowledge: Legal Compliance
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Another challenging aspect of Enterprise SEO campaigns is navigating through the complexities of the legal team.
Every project will need to go through this team to ensure the project aligns with the companyās standards, policies,
rules, regulations and overall compliance with the messaging set out by the brand.
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Essential Knowledge:
Navigating Multiple
Departments
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Enterprise companies often have a number of
departments that every project must go through
and get approval before a project is considered
acceptable to publish.
A lot of these department heads will have little
understanding or working knowledge of SEO. In
order to get recommendations implemented,
and content published, you need business cases,
and case studies to get buy in for a lot of these
projects.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: Some organizations end up with the wrong tools because
some SEO tool providers have very strong sales teams.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Solution: Identify core features of a different tool and tie it to needs
throughout the organization. Tell the vendor you need to beat an
existing vendorās price to switch.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: You cannot build links due to legal compliance issues.
Outreach cannot be done and there are limitations to the deployment
of content.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Solution: Buy websites and surgically redirect them from speciļ¬c page
to speciļ¬c page.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Solution: Education, business cases and case studies. Use algorithm
updates against other peopleās the KPIs and use them for buy-in. Donāt
be ashamed to use vanity metrics to your advantage.
41
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IPULLRANK.COM
Be prudent with your words and data points. Executives
tend to be very busy and prefer you to get to the bottom
line as clearly and succinctly as possible.
Shantel Branch
Senior Account Manager
@iPullRank
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: Content deployment takes too long. You canāt capitalize on
news and trends.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Solution: Content Strategy. Be more predictive and build out clear
governance models and workļ¬ows through content strategy.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: Obsolete technology and frankenstein content management
systems. Keep you from being able to launch things.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: Brands have microsites for a variety of initiatives and link
equity is split.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Solution: Lunch and learn sessions with representatives from each
line of business you need to educate them that it is all one site.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: They donāt want to make āSEO content,ā because that is not
what their audience wants.
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IPULLRANK.COM
You just had to kind of help educate them that youāre not
just writing for a print product anymore. Youāre writing
for a larger world thing and then bring that all together.
Christopher Hart,
Director of Revenue
@iPullRank
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Solution:
Content Planning and
Content Roadmaps
ModernEnterpriseSEO
You also need to have working knowledge of content strategy and planning. Content and SEO go hand in hand, but
you need a clear roadmap and content plan before diving in and creating that content. What is each piece of
contentās purpose? Who is your audience? Where is each user at in the buyer journey? These are just some of the
questions your content roadmap should answer.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: The organization is siloed. Different groups are not
communicating and that causes diļ¬culty for the SEO program.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Solution: Reach out to people throughout the organization and
network. The more people you engage with the more youāll be aware
of whatās going on. You canāt expect everyone to always bring things to
you.
55
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: Getting buy-in from the development team to implement
changes.
56
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Solution: Learn to speak the product management language. Create
user stories with very speciļ¬c instructions for implementation.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Problem: Because Enterprise brands are typically huge siloed
companies they don't really want to try anything new because they're
already doing great.
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Common SEO Enterprise Challenges
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Solution: Show the value of being innovative through case studies and
business cases. Show what competitors are doing. Explain why new
techniques might be more beneļ¬cial than what is already out there
and how we can get where we need to be.
59
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Our Approach to Enterprise SEO
How iPullRank makes the magic happen
ModernEnterpriseSEO
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We approach SEO as a holistic effort that needs to ļ¬t into rather than disrupts the marketing mix. Itās an effort that
sits across your company and an SEOs coordinate with the right people to make it happen.
What is the SEO process?
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Workļ¬ows and Governance
Models
ModernEnterpriseSEO
You cannot do effect content-driven SEO in an
enterprise environment without doing Content
Strategy. You need to map the process and
the key stakeholders so you know how to
effectively move content from ideation to
creation, optimization and publish.
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How do you Operationalize Content?
YPOSEOEducation
SEO needs to be baked into your content operations through people, process and technology rather than having it be
a ābuttonā that is āpushedā once the content is complete.
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Lunch and Learns
ModernEnterpriseSEO
SEO is not a button that is pushed. It requires
a variety of stakeholders to be aware of what
needs to be done so they can ļ¬ag
opportunities to bring SEO in.
This can only be done through education.
Bring people to the table with free food.
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Integrated Search
ModernEnterpriseSEO
A key area to test and learn for SEO is in Paid
Search. There is almost always an opportunity
for Paid and Organic to work together to save
time, money and prioritize opportunities for
improved performance.
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Think Like a Product Manager
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Product Managers are great at translating
requirements into things that engineers can
understand. Embrace agile methodologies,
learn to write user stories and get comfortable
with development vocabulary so you can join
meetings and help push your SEO
recommendations along.
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Natural Language Generation
ModernEnterpriseSEO
We live in the future now with advanced
natural language generation capable of
creating text for the all the areas of websites
that people should not need to spend their
time.
Check out our post on this:
https://bit.ly/Natural_Language_Generation
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Automated 301 Redirection of
Broken Link Targets
ModernEnterpriseSEO
https://bit.ly/SEO_Redirects
The Foolproof Guide to Redirects
If you redirect old URLs to new one (in example:
A to C and B to C) all 301's should be removed
from index and SEO will be redirected to the new
page/url. Remember that 100% SEO will never
be transferred to the new URL.
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Crawl Speed & Site Speed
ModernEnterpriseSEO
As your site gets bigger, the speed of the pages impacts how often Google crawls them. The more Google crawls, the
more opportunities youāll have to rank.
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Internal Link Building
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Internal links also connect your content and
give Google an idea of the structure of your
website. They can establish a hierarchy on
your site, allowing you to give the most
important pages more link value than other
less valuable pages.
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Reverse Proxies
ModernEnterpriseSEO
In computer networks, a reverse proxy is a
type of proxy server that retrieves resources
on behalf of a client from one or more
servers. These resources are then returned
to the client, appearing as if they originated
from thep proxy server itself.
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Domain Acquisition
ModernEnterpriseSEO
If you already have an established brand name,
getting a domain for that brand name is a
practical must; not only will it help you rank
higher and be more memorable, it will also stop
potential competitors or poachers for using your
branded domain for other purposes.
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Mike King
Founder and Managing Director
Twitter: @iPullRank
Email: mike@ipullrank.com
Website: https://ipullrank.com
Get in touch if you need some help!
ModernEnterpriseSEO
Thank You!