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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DO YOU REALLY NEED THAT?Wants vs. Needs

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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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Foundation of the search Experience

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Authority

Relevance

Usability

What is Pertinent to You?

0

20000000

40000000

60000000

80000000

100000000

120000000

140000000

Mobile Traffic Growth

Mobile

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What is Pertinent to You?

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Is It Your Top Priority?

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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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SEO Is Not an Off-the-Rack Solution

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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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JUSTIFYING YOUR PROJECT WITH MONEYIt’s Why We’re All Here

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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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PRODUCT AND RELEASE MANAGEMENTIterate to Liberate

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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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MEASURE, REPORT, RINSE, REPEATProve out the ROI

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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 CONSCIOUSNESSThe Politics of In-House SEO

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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