SEO Deliverance at BrightonSEO

SEO What?  

Deliverance. 

Oh, right.

Thanks.

When Kelvin asked me to prepare a presentation outlining how to deliver SEO change at a big brands it got me thinking about the unique position SEO’s find themselves in at large corporations. SEO Deliverance is my take on how to successfully integrate and manage the SEO tasks and processes necessary to deliver change at big brand sites.

Brighton Dome
Re-filling after lunch

So here I was, on stage at the glorious Brighton Dome, preparing to preach the virtues of SEO Deliverance to a crowd of
1,500 digital marketers, so ‘Where do I
begin?’ (Chemical Brothers)?

Music of course!
Brighton Dome is a superb music venue and just like the music industry (outside of Mr Cowell’s vice like grip), ‘search’ is a creative industry too, I therefore attempted to maintain a music theme throughout my presentation by including references to various artists, songs and albums etc.

To begin, I thought it best to define the meaning of deliverance (as detailed at www.thefreedictionary.com):

1. a formal pronouncement or expression of opinion
   - In this instance, my opinion on how to successfully integrate and manage SEO tasks to deliver change at big brand sites.
2. rescue from moral corruption or evil; salvation
   - Despite Google not being evil, all SEO’s seek salvation
3. another word for delivery
   -  The objective
4. rescue from bondage or danger
   - Don’t be seen as ‘Just another brick in the wall’ (Pink Floyd) within the corporate structure.

Working in a big brand SEO’s face an immediate danger of getting pigeon-holed in a single department (‘Dirty pigeons’ Blur – Parklife), bogged down with internal politics and endless sign-off processes, becoming invisible to the wider business.  As SEO’s, you need to ‘Be free, to do what you want, any old time.’ (Soup Dragons).

@RichardBaxter mentioned during his talk just before me that you should “learn how to pitch yourself” & “understand the perception people have of you”, I wholly agree and recommended that you position yourself as a Guru within the business, the man to go to, the man that can, the ‘Man, I feel like a woman’ (Shania Twain).  To do this you need to deliver something significant that gets you noticed within the business, a step change that  makes a difference and earns you the respect required to secure project sign-off (and delivery) in the future.

To achieve delivery of SEO change at big brands, you need to know and action the ’2Unlimited’ phases of Research, Development and Implementation:

Follow these phases and…
‘Know, know - know, know, know know - know know, know know - know know, there’s know limit’ to what you can deliver.  OK, I admit this was a stinker, but at least everyone knows it (excuse the pun).

The key take-outs from these nine ‘Knows’ are detailed below, and if you want to download the full presentation (minus a few images, sorry) it’s now available on SlideShare.

• Know your market through keyword research.
• Assess the SERPs and the impact of universal search on the keywords you identify.

• Audit the SERPs, who’s consistently competing for your target keywords in paid and organic channels?
• Use Semetrical’s DeepCrawl tool to analyse your competitor’s website architecture.  Identify potential indexation, content and validation issues and areas of weaknesses – assess your opportunity.

• What is the website goal and what constitutes a conversion?
• Have any specific objectives been set?

• What is the scope of the project?
• What’s the capacity to deliver?
• What are the costs?
• Define the budget
• Project the returns

• Build and develop the central search team – you cannot do it all!
• Identify departmental advocates, develop them as an extended search team
• Maintain your teams knowledge – Read, Debate and Innovate:
  Read up in the morning, discuss at lunch and innovate (test stuff) in the afternoon

• Start with a business case – it’s all about the ROI!
• Communicate the strategic goal – avoid jargon
• Reference your research (data) to quantify the opportunity

• Be prepared when it comes to the pitch:
• Know your research
• Know your numbers
• Know your plan and believe in it

In essence, SEO Deliverance at big brands is all about preparation, planning and perfecting the pitch to secure project sign-off.  If you follow these simple process guidelines throughout the research, development and implementation stages, you will be able to prepare and deliver a solid business case and project plan that which leads to repeated sign-off and delivery quickly and efficiently.

Of course, sign-off  is just one small part of the bigger SEO picture, you still need to manage and deliver the actual website change, monitor performance and quantify the returns delivered but I’ll save that for another time.

Don’t forget to enter the Semetrical DeepCrawl Prize Draw which was announced at BrightonSEO.
Follow @Semetrical on Twitter and retweet the promotional tweet to enter before the end of September and you could win a DeepCrawl account of your very own!

Download the full SEO Deliverance presentation from @ToastedTeacake (minus a few images, sorry) at SlideShare.

2 Responses

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1. Written by CelestialChook
   on September 23, 2012 at 8:43 am
   Reply · Permalink

   Hi Tony

   Your presentation, along with Dave Trott, Martin Bellam, Steph Troeth and Richard Baxter were the highlights of BrightonSEO for me. I have used elements of all in the past week. As an in-house SEO and content manager, I think you capture and summarise well the key points that are essential to managing a healthy website and how to effectively and proactively manage the dialogue to keep all areas of the business engaged.

   Many thanks

2. Written by Tony
   on September 24, 2012 at 10:04 am
   Reply · Permalink

   Thanks for the positive feedback.
   I have to agree, Dave Trott, Martin, Steph and Richard were all excellent, I’m pleased to hear you enjoyed the talks and are already being proactive with some of the tips.
   Working client side certainly comes with a whole range of additional pressures and hurdles for an SEO to manage on a daily basis. For me, the most important factor is building and maintaining a good team; one that can not only manage the day to day SEM tasks, but build relationships with the wider business to help maximise delivery opportunities.

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