Winning In House SEO Battles - by Ash Nallawalla
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This document discusses how SEO efforts can face "friendly fire" from other teams within large enterprises due to lack of communication and siloed goals. It identifies several teams that may clash with SEO, including doubters, recruiters, finance, marketing, legal, product owners, UX, IT, content teams, and analytics. The document provides examples of tensions that can arise and potential solutions, such as ensuring SEO goals are aligned with other teams' KPIs, clear communication, and elevating the SEO manager role.
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Winning In House SEO Battles - by Ash Nallawalla
- 1. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Winning In-House SEO Battles When Friendly Fire Strikes Ash Nallawalla Fractional SEO, CRM911 Digital Author of “Accidental SEO Manager” AI images by Microsoft Image Creator
- 2. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla • SEO consultant at CRM911.com • Moderator at Webmasterworld forums • Mostly in enterprise SEO roles, notably Carsales.com.au, Suncorp Insurance Group, NAB, ANZ Bank, UBank, Optus and Yellow Pages; also Macromedia/Adobe, Royal Australian Air Force etc • International SEO • Ham radio operator • Book author (Amazon) 2
- 3. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla WHAT IS FRIENDLY FIRE? Introduction ALMOST COMPLETED AVAILABLE
- 4. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla With Friends Like These… • Medium-to-large enterprises usually operate in silos and each silo tries to meet the assigned targets. • Sometimes, that might thwart SEO efforts to meet the same assigned targets. • Why does this happen? • Has it happened to you? 4
- 5. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Why Do Silos Clash? 5 SEO Team Silo Causes of tensions Goals not linked Roles not understood Shared KPIs/OKRs Often there is no overlap Communicate! Always a great idea
- 6. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Our Frenemies • The Doubters • Recruiters • Finance • Marketing • Legal • Product Owners • User Experience • IT/Engineering • Content Teams • Analytics • And more… 6
- 7. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Doubters • Some execs are sceptical about SEO and will resist allocating a budget for it. This is usually in the startup phase, but it can happen for later SEO requests. • A startup founder builds the website personally, or asks a family member to do so. • Solution: None, if there is no SEO hired to help. Explain the SEO benefits clearly. 7
- 8. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Recruiters • Recruiters are (IMHO) the biggest threat to SEO. • They can eliminate the best candidate for a vacancy for a non-SEO reason, e.g. age, or other illegal but unprovable bias. • My solution was to let me (the SEO Manager) to see all the applications (100s) and interview five or six, and arrive at a short list of three. Then I included a recruiter in the final interview. Be sure to follow all corporate protocols. 8
- 9. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Finance • Finance does not get involved with the daily SEO tasks, but can unexpectedly cut budget, e.g. reduce headcount, reduce tool subscriptions, etc. • Regular communication about the importance of SEO will help. 9
- 10. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Marketing • (In Australia, SEO is usually not a part of Marketing) • In one company, Marketing was very possessive of all content on the website and even wanted to approve meta tags. E.g. We cannot use the word “cheap” because we are a premium brand and it goes against our brand tone and voice. • The agreed solution in such cases was to use such language in the Title tag or Meta Description. 10
- 11. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Legal • Legal might object to certain language on the page, e.g. superlatives that cannot be substantiated, e.g. “Best.” • Solution: If a neutral person, a reviewer, for example, declares our product the best in class, it might sway Legal into allowing such a descriptor. Industry awards are another example. 11
- 12. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Product Owners • The larger the company, the greater is the possibility that the product owners are not in your building or city. • The owners might disagree with suggested changes to the page content. • Explain the SEO benefit of the proposed changes. Use corporate metrics, such as KPIs, OKRs to show how the product owners will benefit. 12
- 13. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla User Experience • UX can reject SEO input, e.g. navigation, accessibility and use vague claims – “our customers prefer this.” • Present SEO case and escalate if necessary. • Request input into user surveys. 13
- 14. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla IT/Engineering • Conflicts with SEO can occur: – Firewalls that block SEO crawlers or even search engines! – Security policies – blocked sites, locked down PCs, inability to add browsers or add extensions, blocked network protocols, e.g. traceroute, ping etc • Solution is communication: – Explain need – Ask for exceptions to policy • If all fails, get an unofficial laptop that is outside the network and has its own network connection. 14
- 15. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Content Teams • If the content writing team is not integrated with the SEO team, they might be sensitive to SEO input. • If the CMS team is separate, factor them into the workflow. • Agree on a content brief template and a workflow that goes through the SEO team, e.g. – Primary query – Additional search terms (provide a Keyword Register) – Linking suggestions (internal and external) 15
- 16. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Analytics • Audit tracking tags regularly. Many were placed out of curiosity and nobody is using that information now. • Often nobody remembers who asked for the tracking. • Suggest the unclaimed tags be removed. 16
- 17. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Ideal Solution • Promote the SEO manager to the C-suite. • Title such as “Chief Web Officer”, “Chief Webmaster” or “Website Success Officer. 17
- 18. #pubcon https://accidentalseomanager.com @ashnallawalla Thank You! • Please connect via LinkedIn and mention Pubcon. https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashnallawalla/ • Read my book/s. 18