Enterprise SEO Strategies for 2013

Can you believe it’s almost 2013 already?  That means looking at the future of your marketing plan and the new elements at play.  In the world of Online Search, the impact is real and immediate.  A well planned SEO strategy and digital marketing campaign can make sure your organization remains viable against competitors and increases business margins. Investing in advertising with no distinguishable ROI is a thing of the past for most brands.

The problem with Enterprise SEO Strategy is that it can sometimes overwhelm marketing executives. Executives wear multiple hats and don’t have the time or energy to delve into the nuances of technical implementation or stay on the cutting edge of Search Engine algorithm updates and results enhancements.

In order to help large brands and marketing executives make educated decisions in prioritizing search, we have provided a list of the top 3 strategies enterprise SEO campaigns need.

1. Business Unit & Organizational Alignment – Is your marketing team setting one KPI after another?  Do they live in silos that don’t cross promote sales opportunities? Do you have a clear understanding of where you want to send visitors for particular keywords? Stop the madness!  It’s time to take a step back and really start to integrate across your own teams (whether they be internal, agencies, or both).  Set up a keyword governance strategy so that each business unit understands what their targeted keywords are, why they are targeting them, and how those differ from other business units.  The very nature of this priority alignment and the communication of KPIs allows for strategies that will drive visitors to the appropriate web pages and other digital assets. This also allows business groups to promote each other instead of diluting focus by competing for similar or identical goals.
2. Technology Changes & Implementation – For those of you operating internationally, do you struggle to manage site content across multiple country code top-level domains?  Do you know if your Content Management System is creating parameters that are causing duplicate content or auto-generating pages in an attempt to provide scalable development? You must have an understanding of how your enterprise technology systems are going to play into your SEO strategy. SEO implementation has to be prioritized in the enterprise marketing plan.  IT departments are notoriously resistant to change, an increase in workload, and being assigned tasks where they can’t see the direct value. The Search Engines change rapidly and developers need to be willing and able to adapt.  SEOs also need to do a better job at explaining why the work is important and what the outcome of the work will be to improve buy-in.  When considering your enterprise search strategy, ask yourself these questions: (1) Do you have a large e-commerce system that generates dynamic URLs that vary based on the entry path? (2) Do you have a translation management system that translates all of your content to all regions? (3) Have you updated your translation glossaries to reflect your localized keyword priorities? If you haven’t thought of these questions yet, you probably need to revisit your global search strategy.
3. Understanding The Changing Search Landscape – Search changes fast. There were over 20 major updates in 2012 and many minor adjustments. According to Google’s Matt Cutts at SES San Francisco 2012, their engineers are continually working on new updates. Google algorithm updates, like the Panda & Penguin updates, have real search engine impact and have negatively affected the bottom line revenue for many businesses due to lost rankings.  It’s not enough to mitigate risk; brands need to be forward thinking and stretch their boundaries so they aren’t outpaced by competitors.

“You can never avoid people thinking that SEO is an effort to game the system or Google. Many tricks worked in the past, but as Google tries to continuously improve the quality of search results, many tricks do not work anymore. Being successful in SEO these days involves thinking along the lines of great customer service, offering great products and services, being a thought leader, and building brand advocacy online. Eventually this all helps out in building rankings as you gain more natural links that would not be affected by the Panda and Penguin updates.”  – Benj Arriola

Businesses have an opportunity to expand their organic search footprint by getting up to speed with the new enhancements.  Consider the following areas:

• A renewed focus on thought leadership, content marketing, and social media
• Managing your Google+ brand page and Google+ Places pages for multiple locations
• Determine how your organization will use Authorship tags
• Determine how your audience can engage with your brand on a Google Hangout

If you haven’t at least begun to investigate these strategies, you’re falling behind the curve.  Start to embrace the Google+ world. It’s not going anywhere and users are beginning to adopt it.  Even more importantly your search visibility can be enhanced by rolling out a strategy that makes sense for your brand and locations.

Search will continue to drive traffic for enterprise organizations.  How much traffic really depends on the organization’s alignment, grasp of technology, and flexibility to adapt to the changing environment. 2013 is sure to be exciting, are you ready?

Brent Gleeson, Forbes Contributor

I write about entrepreneurship, leadership, and digital marketing.

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