Why Governance Matters In SEO

Imagine a basketball team where teammates don’t communicate on the floor, or a military campaign that doesn’t have a unified goal that all divisions will support. Each example speaks to the importance of establishing a greater good.

In the same way, an organization that runs multiple SEO campaigns needs each business unit to buy-in to a common goal and communicate with one another.

Sure, each operating unit can and should have their individual goals as they own their own P&L’s, but they also need to have a constant awareness of enterprise goals, and actively participate in helping the organization achieve those goals.

In fact, the enterprise level SEO goals should be the beacons to which all business units set their course. This approach will mitigate internal competition amongst business units in search engines, and as a result, help the organization capture a broader search audience. Ultimately, it will help produce a more efficient and enjoyable customer journey.

The Risks Of Forgoing A Governance System

But is a governance system really necessary for successful enterprise SEO? Ask Steve. He manages SEO efforts for a large insurance entity with four business units. As a whole, his company has about 1000 keywords that are particularly relevant to the business; 20 of them are considered “gold” as they drive the most search volume.

Unfortunately though, each of the four business units is focusing their SEO efforts on that small set of high value keywords. Moreover – as Steve is painfully aware — the business units are not communicating or strategizing with a greater good in mind.

As a result, this situation has adversely affected the organization. Most noticeable is the heightened internal competition it has created in the search engines. That landscape was competitive enough for these gold keywords without the added competition of multiple business units within the organization vying for a top position organically.

In addition, this approach has also produced a less than optimal experience for the consumer. While business units may argue that they are pursuing as much shelf space as possible, their efforts have created search results that are messy and confusing for the searcher with a specific intent. Because of it, Steve’s click through rate is suffering.

On top of that, none of the operating units have even considered the opportunity cost of not targeting the other 980 keywords. Even if the 20 gold keywords represent 500,000 of the one million searches the business nets each month, how much incremental value have they missed by not targeting the other 980 keywords?

5 Tips For Establishing Enterprise SEO Governance

Below are a few tips that an enterprise should consider when formulating a governance solution:

1. Determine enterprise goals. Start with the online goals of the business. Why do you even have a website? Within that answer lives your enterprise goals that should be supported by SEO activities of all assets and business units associated with the enterprise.
2. Complete keyword research by business unit. Each business unit should complete keyword research as if they are a stand-alone business without a connection to other business units. This will allow each adequate creative space to think about its own goals strategically, and not be hamstrung by thoughts of enterprise goals. Then connect the business unit goals to the enterprise goals, ensuring the connection is clear and direct.If a connection is not obvious, or if there is duplication across business units, consider why this is and make adjustments as necessary.  Note: there may be scenarios where a certain keyword or content topic is truly relevant for more than one business unit. If so, consider alternatives such as a dual landing page or keyword derivatives.
3. Create a communication framework. Governance doesn’t work without communication. Given that, you’ll need a forum that can handle keyword and other SEO discussions. Consider developing a “Search Committee” with representatives from different business units and functional areas. This builds SEO into the fabric of the organization, and creates a platform for sharing goals, challenges, and strategies. This is a must.
4. Report against the right goals. Once each business unit has a strategy that supports its own goals and those of the enterprise, they need to examine the trends around these different goals. In many cases, this will require business units to shift to a wider reporting lens that incorporates enterprise results. If a business unit is being asked to support a common good, the common good needs to be monitored and shared amongst business units, and the business units should report on their contributions.
5. Ensure that governance is built to be enforceable. Enterprise SEO is not a “set it and forget it” strategy. You’ll need to create a framework of accountability. In addition, you might want to consider establishing incentives for business unit managers to achieve enterprise level goals.

Enterprise level SEO is plenty challenging on its own, but if it is not supported with a governance system, it will most likely not deliver the maxim value it could. Savvy B2B marketers will work to institute such a program to ensure that the search goals of each business unit are aligned with the overall organization’s objectives.

Understanding the value

Social media marketing can be leveraged as a public relations tool during a brand crisis—think of it as a damage control device. In short, it can increase positive impressions around your brand and help you manage your online marketing messaging during a difficult time.

At its core, the “conversation” element of social media—supported by the branding aspects of organic or paid search campaigns—can improve brand engagement, and build a community of supporters. Moreover, listening to the concerns and feedback that customers provide in social media can help the brand better articulate its response to the crisis, and craft its most effective message to the public.

Making it work

Below is a 3-step plan to help you capitalize on the power of social media during a brand management crisis. However, before you take action, you must first step back to carefully, calmly, and thoroughly assess the situation at hand.

Step 1: Take inventory

The first step in this process is to assess the current social media initiatives underway at your organization. For example, does your company have a presence in social networking, video sites, or micro-blogging? If so, consider them to be your baseline social media assets for replacing negative press with positive branding. In addition, you will also want to have a good understanding of your other marketing assets, like optimized videos or search leveraged press releases, which can be used within social media. In essence, before you move forward with this plan, you want to find out what you already have to utilize.

Step 2: Hone message; select targets

Time matters in short-term brand management challenges. You can be sure that there will be little or no opportunity for a “do-over.” Given that, you not only need to pick the right sites, but it’s critical that you expose the right message. Granted, that may sound basic, but the efficacy of your social media initiatives will largely depend on whether or not the messaging is appropriately designed to engage the target audience and positively affect them. Below are three examples of large, well-known social media sites, and how you can tap into them for short-term brand management challenges:

Facebook: Functioning as a single point of contact for your customers and end-users alike, your Facebook page could be a crucial meeting center for updated information on the situation. The page can be used to host a new press release, product videos/pictures, an audio message from the CEO, and provide a link to your website. Naturally, all of these assets should be optimized for search. Ninety million Facebook users (comScore) is a large audience, and Facebook pages are crawlable by the search engines.

YouTube: With ownership of over one-third of online videos viewed in the US, YouTube has a massive reach with viral potential. You could use existing video assets, or even produce a short video to post. The optimized videos can be geo-targeted, and a PPC element is now in beta in YouTube that will allow you to bid your videos to the top of the results in a time when high visibility is absolutely crucial. In addition, comments on YouTube are also crawlable and could help produce additional SERP “real estate.”

Twitter: Twitter allows constant communication in real-time. Using your brand logo as an image, you can follow, and participate in, the conversation of your target market. Include links to your website in your “tweets” and try to direct people to your branded Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking sites/pages for further clarification about the situation. You might also want to set-up a “Tweet Beep” to get notification of relevant conversations, so you can immediately enter them and become a valuable resource.

Step 3: Align search

The convergence of search and social media is happening quickly. As the capabilities of these marketing strategies expand and overlap online, it is becoming increasingly necessary to coordinate the two. Given that, below are a few high-level search opportunities to be sure to address in conjunction with social media during a short-term brand management challenge:

• Assets submitted to social media sites should be optimized for search
• Be sure to supply links to your site within your keyword-centric social media contributions
• PPC keywords that are relevant to the situation should be targeted, and should resolve to an appropriate company news landing page

Overall, these three steps should help you capitalize on the power of social media to combat a difficult brand management situation. However, there’s one more: You don’t need to wait for a crisis situation. Start embracing social media today, so if a brand crisis hits, you’ll be best positioned to quickly leverage its power to mitigate the damage.