In-house SEOs need agile tools and adaptability to meet the demanding marketplace and expectations set forth by company executives. Look at the available solutions, so when the time comes you’re ready to convince the company why you need it.
The SEO landscape has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. In 2001, you could get by simply doing keyword research, making a couple on page site tweaks, and ranking for some keywords. You were an SEO guru by doing this 2001.
Everything since then has changed dramatically with the increasing importance of Google and its many algorithm updates, the availability of more SEO information, and the largest recession of the century. All these together have created a much more complicated modern SEO campaign.
The modern in-house SEO is a demanding job. You’re the educator, strategist, and executor wrapped up into one.
Typically in large organizations, you’re really almost a salesman trying to convince other teams/divisions to buy in to why SEO is important. A typical day can consist of many meetings, presentations, and your other relegated duties — like ensuring the website ranks well and meets the business goals your company set forth. The modern in-house SEO manager is a marketing juggler, if not a superhero.
In 2011, the modern SEO campaign has become more demanding. More results are expected, more reporting is asked, education is needed, and more buy-in is needed. Justification of your efforts is required at every turn. A typical campaign will be measured on metrics for success (varying from business to business) such as:
A recent SEMPO 2011 State of Search survey indicated that SEO in-house optimization was only used by 44 percent of the respondents, compared to 51 percent in 2010. More companies are outsourcing.
On the flip side, the same respondents also said they were looking at increasing SEO spend by 43 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. What this means is higher expectations, more money, and less margin for error for in-house SEOs.
“What are the top expectations you expect from the marketing budget in 2011?” That was the question posed in a study conducted in 2010 by Advertising Age magazine and Forrester Research, called the CMO Group Survey.
The most common answers from some of the top CMOs were:
Every move you make, every page you rank, they will be watching you. (Couldn’t resist the Police reference.) In-house SEOs will need agile tools and adaptability to meet the demanding market place and expectations set forth by company executives.
The simple answer is this: Find an enterprise level solution that can help make your job more manageable and scalable. Tools in the modern enterprise SEO sense are generally SaaS (Software as a Solution) systems that can help you effectively manage large-scale SEO campaigns that can sometimes have thousands, if not millions, of keywords and pages across multiple sites or countries.
These solutions offer high-level dashboards to help easily manage massive campaigns and see glaring errors from a macro level. Enterprise solutions can also offer high-level dashboards that you can share with executives to help them understand your role and contribution to the overall brand.
As Arthur C. Clarke once said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Here are some of the top questions you should consider to find that SEO enterprise solution that can help you with your SEO magic.
The modern enterprise in-house SEO role is a highly demanding and taxing job. You must be the SEO evangelist, strategist, and super-humanist (a human with super abilities).
Don’t let your enterprise demands become your kryptonite to success. Find ways to help make your job more efficient and maximize return.
At a minimum, look at the solutions out there, so when the time comes you’re ready to convince the company why you need it.