Building Business Cases for SEO Initiatives #SEJThinkTank @keithgoode
Your PresenterKeith L. Goode, Chief SEO Evangelist
• ~20 years of Online Experience– AMD
– HomeAway.com
– Builders Digital Experience
– SpareFoot.com
• Dell (4 years)– SEO Technology Lead, DCS (formerly eDell)
– Technical SEO Instructor
• Currently– Chief SEO Evangelist, seoClarity
• Presentations– Clarity ’13/’14
– Pubcon Vegas
– Pubcon Austin
– Austin SEO
Twitter: @keithgoodewww.slideshare.net/AustinOtaku
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Key Takeaways
• Prioritize your SEO deliverables for your specific business needs
• Work with Finance for ROI estimates and PdM Team to scale an iterative release
• Measure KPI’s Before and After … and publicize your successes
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What You Will Learn
• Aligning SEO initiatives to business needs• Committing to the Dollar Figures• Helping your product team help you• Measuring and Following up on Your
Successes
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Poll #1
How would you describe your current role?In-House SEOAgencyIn-House OtherOther
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How In-House SEO’s Spend Their Time
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Data Aggregation33%
Reporting22%
Research / Analysis22%
Execution17%
Education6%
Data Aggregation Reporting Research / Analysis Execution Education
SEO-phistication Matrix
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Organizational SEO Sophistication
Use
r SEO
Sop
hist
icat
ion
Newbies• No SEO Experience• Evaluating Investment• Limited/No SEO Talent
Visionaries• Realize SEO Value• Dedicated Core Team• Larger team of newbies
Pioneers• Believe in value of SEO• Testing investment• Dedicated Talent
Leaders• SEO is critical to business• Strong SEO Performance• Strong SEO Team
THE ENTERPRISE JOURNEY
Technical SEO – Endless Activity
Technical SEO
SEO URLs
Site Speed
HREFLANG
Mobile Responsive
Mobile Adaptive
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What is Pertinent to You?
0
20000000
40000000
60000000
80000000
100000000
120000000
140000000
Mobile Traffic Growth
Mobile
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Competitive Priority?
• There may be better way to spend your budget and resources
• Play to your strongest channels
• When you have extra time, budget, resources, etc. … then try
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Choose Your Priorities Based on Relevance
• What you want isn’t always the first thing you need
• Choosing the right focus for development efforts will reap more easily-provable benefits
• This is the foundation for building your credibility
URLs• Canonicalization• Friendly URLs• ccTLDs
UX• Page Speed• Page Design• Shopping Funnel
Mobile• Responsive• Adaptive• App
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Prove Out Your ROI• Move beyond “should” to
“must”• The only way to do this is
with dollar figures– What’s the Cost?
• Dev Time• Resources
– What’s the benefit?• Incremental Revenue based
on Traffic Increase• Increased Conversion Rate
• What is your organization’s minimally-acceptable ROI?
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Estimating Impact• Monitor the blogs for industry studies
– Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Roundtable, Moz, YouMoz
• Go out to the forums for testimonials from users– Webmaster World, Inbound.org
• Follow the tools of the trade for input– seoClarity, Searchmetrics, etc.
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Estimating Impact
• Take the assumed benefit and apply it to your current numbers
• Example:– +7.9% CTR to go from
2nd position to 1st.– Current keyword CTR
via GWT– Apply conversion rate
based on analytics
HTTP://XKCD.COM/605/
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Estimating Impact
• Gather the following:– Search volume– GWT CTR– Conversion Rate– Organic Revenue Per Visit (RPV)
http://searchengineland.com/considering-clickthrough-rate-95277
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Test First … When Possible
If you’re not an all-or-nothing kind of shop:• Conversion Rate
Optimization– A/B or Multivariate
Testing• Organic Traffic Impact
– Throttled releases
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Commit to The Dollar Figures
• Anecdotal Nature of Some SEO Practices Can Make this Difficult
• Be conservative –again, your reputation is on the line
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Get Finance Buy-inIf you can convince a Finance person of your proposed benefit, you can convince a steering committeeAnswer the questions:
– What is my KPI?– What is the incremental
benefit to the business?– How long will it take to
reap the benefits?
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Poll #2What is your #1 biggest challenge in your role?Getting priority in budgetsPrioritizing tasks and goalsFighting external influences (Google!)Fixing issues caused by other internal or
agency teamsOtherNone. I’m good.
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Granularity and Product Vision• To Compromise is Not
to Sacrifice– Minimally Marketable
Features (MMF)– Sprint-Sized Tasks
• Thoroughly Communicate your vision of “Done”
• Listen – System Limitations– Conflicts with Other
Elements
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Minimally-Marketable Features
Depending on the size of your technical ask, you may need to break it down into smaller pieces
• Getting to “Done” may take the same amount of time
• Start reaping successes along the way to done
• Your definition of “Done” may change 3 iterations into the project
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Iterating Your Requests
-6 seconds (Single Release)
Optimize caching serversTag managementCode optimizationServer upgrades / optimization
-2 seconds (Iteration 1)
Optimize caching serversServer upgrades / optimization
-4 seconds (Iteration 2)
Tag managementCode optimization
Goal: Decrease Load Time by 6 Seconds
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“If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up someplace else.” ― Yogi Berra
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From Whence to Where?• Where are you now?
– URL/Keyword Pairing– URL/Conversion Rate– Track as early as
possible to avoid seasonal interference
• Where would you like to go? – Revisit – Are you seeing what you
thought you’d see?
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Evangelize Your Success
• Be Transparent– Report Your
Successes … and Learnings
• Newsletter• Executive Summary
and Reporting– Don’t Hog the
Limelight • Attitude of gratitude
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Poll #3
Do you currently offer SEO training to your organization?Yes. We have classes.Yes. We offer periodic sessions (brown-bag
lunches)Yes. I train one-on-one as needed.No.
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Spreading SEO ConsciousnessIf you fail to secure funding, focus your energy on internal training
1. Get Executive Buy-in, Approval, and Prioritization2. Develop Your Training Material3. Establish your Classes
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Get Executive Buy-in, Approval, and Prioritization
• Show the financial benefit
• Get prioritization• Integrate into
Individual Development Plans
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Develop Your Training Material
• Customize your training materials per specialization
• Use real-world examples
• Update regularly
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Establish your Classes• Medium and Large
Businesses– Full course curriculum– Lunch and Learn
refreshers• Small and Medium
Businesses– Lunch and Learn Classes
• Individual Sessions
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Key Takeaways
• Prioritize your SEO deliverables for your specific business needs
• Work with Finance for ROI estimates and PdM Team to scale an iterative release
• Measure KPI’s Before and After … and publicize your successes
#SEJThinkTank @keithgoode