Prophets of Shaky Ground - Pubcon Austin 2014

Prophets of Shaky GroundFuture-proofing Your Organization and Search Strategy in an Ever-Evolving Landscape

Presented by:Keith L. GoodeSEO Technology Lead, Dell#Pubcon #Pubcon155

@keithgoode +KeithGoode www.linkedin.com/in/keithlgoode

About Me

Keith L. Goode Position: SEO Technology LeadCompany: DellExperience:• 15+ years in online• Formerly with:

– Sparefoot, Director of SEO

– Builders Digital Experience, SEM Manager

– HomeAway, SEO Team Lead


Prior Presentations


www.slideshare.net/AustinOtaku

My Goals for this Discussion

• Prognostication: What is the future of in-house SEO teams?

• Preparation: How do you get ahead of the curve?

• Prescription: What are the best techniques for developing a strategy?


My Goals for this Discussion

Protection: 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.

Tl;dr: Be kind, and remember that:

Keith Is Not Dell


PROGNOSTICATIONGoal #1:


Prognostication

My Common Thread:

The Democratization of SEO• Traditional SEO Orgs

represent cloistered knowledge and activities serving the company


Prognostication

My Common Thread:

The Democratization of SEO• Traditional SEO Orgs

represent cloistered knowledge and activities serving the company

• Companies will become “SEO-Conscious Organizations,” replacing many operational SEO roles


Prognostication


SVP, Marketing

Search Guru

Director of Search

SEO Manager

SEO Analyst

SEO Analyst

SEO Analyst

Paid Search Manager

PPC Analyst

PPC Analyst

PPC Analyst

Social Media Manager

Social Media Analyst



Courtesy: Paul Bruemmer “Building an Enterprise-Level Search Marketing Team” Part 1 and Part 2.

Ye Olde Search Team Structure

http://searchengineland.com/building-an-enterprise-level-search-marketing-team-part-1-166527

http://searchengineland.com/building-an-enterprise-level-search-marketing-team-part-2-169017

Prognostication

Search Moves from a Cloistered Group to an Embedded Function

IT / Development

SEO Guru

Development

Manager

Architecture

Manager

Design Manag

er

Business Intelligence

Marketing Director

Social Media Guru

Product

Marketer

Services

Marketer

Solutions

Marketer

Paid Searc

h Manag

er

Business Intelligence


Prognostication

Why do I think this will happen?• Proactive Link Building is history.• Writing SEO copy is history.• Keyword data in analytics is history.• Inauthentic social promotion could be next.

Conversely, the following have increased in importance:• Site speed and performance• Mobile readiness• Local optimization (geo-targeting, etc.)• User interaction with your site (social promotion, search

relevance, UGC, etc.)


Prognostication

Good site architecture, coding, design and usability are not distinct from SEO-recommended best practices. As organizations begin to see them as synonymous, architects, designers, developers and content writers will become SEO practitioners, and SEO practitioners will become guides, responsible for ongoing assessment and instruction.


PREPARATIONGoal #2:


Preparation

Training for Your Company • SEO becomes Educator• Develop your training

approach– Full curriculum (Med-Lg)– Lunch & Learns (Sm-

Med)– Individual sessions

• Customize your training– Development Track– Content Track– Social Track

*See my previous Slideshares for more information


Watch my interview with SEOInhouse.com’s Jessica Bowman at https://www.youtube.com/user/SEOinhousevideo/videos

Preparation

Transforming Your Team• From Operational to

Functional• From Cloistered

Knowledge to the Dissemination of Knowledge

• From Passive Reporting to Active Monitoring and Testing


Preparation

Inspiring Curiosity and Creativity• Your team should be:

– Reviewing blogs daily– Looking at site ranking and

analytics– Asking why things happen

• Your team should not be:– Waiting for instructions

from you.– Lacking in curiosity– If they’re any of these, fire

them! They’re dead weight.


Preparation

Embedding Your Assets • Insert your SEOs into:

– Core Development Teams

– Scrum Sessions– Major Project Teams– User Acceptance Testing – Roadmap Planning

Teams• Require SEO Sign-off on

site changes• Codify Site-wide

Guidelines and Standards and Update Them Often


PRESCRIPTIONGoal #3:


Prescription

Requisite Questions for Building a Strategy:• What is my goal?

– This quarter?– The next 6 months?– This fiscal year?

• Where am I now in relation to those goals?• How will I measure my progress?• What can I control?• What things outside of my control will affect my

progress?• What small, digestible mini-goals will lead me to my

goal?


Prescription

Requisite Kick-off Activities:• Site Audit

– Architecture (Internal link equity)

– Coding (Geo-targeting, semantic markup, clean code, The Basics)

– Content (Evergreen vs. Fresh, UGC)

– Sitemaps and Robots– Inbound Link

Assessment


Prescription

Requisite Kick-off Activities:• Establish your baseline

Analytics• Fetch your baseline

keyword ranking data• Do a competitive

analysis to see what your competitors are doing right

• Look for low-hanging fruit/quick wins– This legitimizes your efforts

quickly and gives you ammo for additional efforts


Prescription

My Toolkit:• seoClarity• Omniture• GWT & BWT• Moz Pro Dashboard• MajesticSEO• Open Site Explorer• Screaming Frog• Excel• Notepad++


Prescription

Setting Expectations• Incorporate technical

fixes into IT Roadmap• Modify your goals for the

scenarios in which:– All of your IT Requests

are fulfilled– Some of your IT

Requests are fulfilled– None of your IT Requests

are fulfilled


Prescription

Recruiting your SME’s• If content is king,

awesome content is king-ier

• Engage your SMEs to write about their area of expertise– Example: Google’s

Developers Blog or its Webmaster Help videos

• Incorporate incentives for participation and social promotion


Prescription

Rinse and Repeat• Once you know what you

need to do, when you plan on doing it, and who’s going to help, set your quarterly and annual goals

• Review your goals and reassess your site and your team regularly and update appropriately


Conclusion

• SEO as an industry is evolving away from operational activities.– Evolve your team accordingly.– Modify your expectations (and those of your executives)

accordingly.• As SEO changes, the organizations that wish to participate

online need to develop “SEO Consciousness.” – Train your organization to understand SEO best practices.– Democratize SEO responsibilities where appropriate.– Embed your SEOs into site processes to monitor for areas of

improvement.• Your strategy should be a living document.

– Nurture it with continuous site improvement and great content.– Update it as necessary to account for internal and external

changes to the search landscape.


THANK YOU!The End


Prophets of Shaky Ground - Pubcon Austin 2014

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