Being an effective_seo_within_your_or-tony_adam

Being an Effective SEO within your Organization Tony Adam

November 11th, 2008

- 2 - Yahoo! Confidential

About Tony Adam - How I got here?

• SEO Manager @ Yahoo!

• My Background:

– Technology Consulting, Sales, BizDev, etc.

– SEO Evangelism

– Program/Project Management

• Where you’ll find me:

http://tonyadam.com/blog

http://twitter.com/tonyadam


How do you start being effective?!

• Get an understanding for the People you work with and interact with.

• Find out who the business stakeholdersare in your organization.

• Know what projects are in progress and if there is any opportunity to create SEO Projects.


Take a moment…

It is extremely important to understand the “Company Culture”


How do you learn the “Company Culture”

• Are you in an organization that moves quickly? Slowly?

• What are the personality types? How do you interact with them?

• Who can you approach to move your agenda?

• Be patient and grow thick skin.


Build Relationships and Partnerships

• Create relationships with the right people.

– At Yahoo!, we call these people our “SEO BFF’s.”

• Partner horizontally with anyone and everyone.

– I’ve found working with Standards teams are your best in.

• Make Friends

– Hang out with people

– Have “Dates”

– Drive By’s!


Be Everywhere and Get Integrated

• Integrate into Processes:

– Planning & Strategy (get on the release calendar)

– Design & Development (Review Meetings, Guidelines, etc.)

– QA (Ensure things are built correctly)

– Go to Market (Blogging, Social Media, PR, etc.)

• Leads & Review Meetings are VERY important!


Set and Manage Expectations

• What do you plan on achieving and can it be quantified?

• When are you planning on getting it done by?

• Be clear about the expectations.

• Pick your battles wisely.


Creating SEO Guidelines

• Build SEO Guidelines into Product Development:

– Content & Copy

– User Experience & Design

– Engineering/Development

– General Guidelines…

• Review Product Specs


Broaden Your Audience…Reach Everyone

• Train the entire organization on SEO

• Push out SEO Knowledge through:

– Internal Blogs

– Internal Wiki

– Newsletters

• Setup Office Hours

– “SEO Hours”


Be Passionate and Evangelize SEO

• Be passionate, bring tons of energy & get people excited about SEO.

• Get SEO into every conversation possible.

• Find people that will be your “Mini SEO Evangelists” within your Organization

• Talk about Success Stories


The Quick and Dirty Key Takeaways

• Understand the Company Culture

• Build Relationships and Partnerships

• Get Integrated into Processes and Manage Expectations

• Create SEO Guidelines

• Train and push knowledge to everyone possible

• Show your passionate and get people excited


THANK YOU!

Tony Adam - SEO Manager at Yahoo!

[email protected]

Where to find me:

http://tonyadam.com/blog/

http://twitter.com/tonyadam

Text “follow tonyadam” to 40404

[email protected]

Being an effective_seo_within_your_or-tony_adam

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