SES San Jose: Top Takeaways Part 3

In this multi-part series we’re covering the sessions at Search Engine Strategies San Jose (from the ones we attended) which we thought provided the most value. Yesterday we attended a session called In House: Big SEO which included the following speakers: Jeffrey Rohrs, Bill Macaitis, Marshall D. Simmonds, Melanie Mitchell, and Bill Hunt.

The most useful takeaway was presented by Bill Macaitis, VP Online Marketing at Fox Interactive. Bill Macaitis provided a list of 20 ways to push SEO projects past existing in house/client related barriers. Below is Bill’s list and I have also added descriptions as I saw fit.

• Define the Opportunity: Make sure your strategies are aligned with the goals of the company and the strategies are communicated to the appropriate stakeholders.
• Evangelize: When SEO succeeds, let your entire team know.
• Sell all Stakeholders: Get buy-in from stakeholders and educate them on the importance of SEO through metrics that matter to them.
• Find Allies: Get as many people as you can from your company on board with SEO.
• Small Wins: Rather than trying to accomplish everything, create small attainable goals.
• Money Words: Capitalize on the words that affect your bottom line.
• Education/Training: If your teammates “get” SEO, they will be more likely to buy-into strategies.
• Weekly Meetings: Keep teammates and clients informed of tasks/accomplishments with weekly meetings.
• Build Relationships: Internally you can better acknowledge teammates you require to help you succeed with SEO. For your clients, create relationships with more than one “champions” within their organization.
• Bribes: If you need IT/programmers to help you, take them out to lunch or give them small gifts.
• Face to Face with Clients: Build trust by meeting your clients face to face on a quarterly basis.
• Internal Competition: If you have 2 teams working on similar projects what better way to motivate them then to have an internal competition.
• External Competition: Show how your competitors are performing against you for metrics such as rankings/page views/back links, etc….
• Show past Successes: Teammates and Clients will appreciate the rewards for all the hard SEO work.
• Past Failures for Not Implementing: Make everyone aware of the failures as they relate to the bottom line of your company’s goals.
• Ranking Reports: Many executive level individuals love to see how their site is performing for their favorite keywords; give them what they want.
• Prioritize Projects: SEO is not the only marketing task therefore it’s important to assign priority to projects.
• Names on Projects: If individuals are assigned to specific tasks, they will be more likely to finish them.
• Deadlines: Time lines and deadlines are an absolute must in order for people to understand the importance of completing tasks.
• Accept No Excuses: Don’t give up and be persistent because YOUR butt is on the line.