Enterprise SEO Management Tips

Writing by Nick Stamoulis in B2B SEO Marketing

In a perfect world, an enterprise SEO campaign would be integrated completely into every aspect of their business, especially so within the multiple factions of the company’ marketing department. However, many enterprises function more like a connected series of separate entities as opposed to one thing, making complete SEO integration incredibly difficult. This is partially due to the sheer size of many enterprise companies, which might includes thousands of employees in dozens of offices around the world. It’s hard to get a million pieces all working in one direction when each segment has its own list of priorities. When I’m working with a small business, I usually deal directly with the owner. When they want something done it happens—no chain of command, no red tape. However, large enterprises sometimes have multiple chains of commands and mountains of red tape that make implementing a cohesive SEO campaign very difficult.

Here are 3 enterprise SEO management tips:

1. Everyone needs to know, not everyone deserves a say.
Obviously your webmaster needs to know what’s going on with your enterprise SEO campaign, since they are likely the ones that will be implementing the onsite changes. However, does your webmaster really need to put their 2 cents in during the keyword research phase? Does your PR team need to approve Meta descriptions? Should a product manager have the final say on the anchor text being used? Everyone needs to know about the SEO campaign because chances are it will impact their job in some way, but not everyone needs to share their opinion. All hands on deck is good, just make sure people know what is and isn’t their decision.

2. There needs to be one person who can pull the trigger.
With many different departments come many different department heads (that multiple chains of command idea). But who does everyone report to about SEO? The CMO? The marketing manager of their own office? The IT director? While I understand there is a hierarchy to enterprises, someone needs to be in charge of your enterprise SEO campaign that can pull the trigger and make things happen. Who does the buck stop with? Who gets the final say? Once that person is established its imperative that everyone know what they say goes.

3. What’s good for the company is good for each department.
Some departments can get a little territorial and don’t like being told what to do. In order for your enterprise SEO campaign to work it’s important that everyone realize what they do individually for the company’s SEO campaign is going to positively impact them in the long run! A product manager might not want to write for the company blog and target XYZ keywords (What’s in it for me?), but by doing so they are creating valuable content for the site that can be shared on social networking sites, used to attract and educate potential customers, which can turn into more qualified leads which means more sales! Individual ego can often get in the way of an enterprise SEO campaign’s success, but that’s why it’s important to keep reminding all teams that the little bit of SEO work they do is going to help the company in the long run, which in turn means they are helping themselves!