Enterprise SEO was written by search marketers responsible for managing SEO for large scale websites or managing a number of enterprise-level or multiple brand sites under one corporate umbrella. Topics ranged from handling technical challenges to working with multiple key stakeholders and getting everyone to play nice together. It no longer runs as a standalone column but instead has been incorporated into the All Things SEO column.

Enterprise SEO Interview With ABC’s John Shehata

Apr 29, 2013 at 9:04am ET by Eric Enge

I spoke recently with John Shehata, the director of search for ABC News. Since he owns the SEO responsibility for a number of large media properties, I leapt at the chance to explore some of the things he has learned along the way. We dug in and explored the challenges of educating a large media company, dealing with multiple content management systems, syndicating content and query deserves freshness, all viewed through the eyes of ABC! Interview Transcript Eric Enge: Can you provide a brief outline of your responsibilities at ABC News? John Shehata: I’m the Executive Director of Se [...]

The Keyword Discovery Process For Enterprise Sites

Apr 8, 2013 at 11:55am ET by Paul Bruemmer

The keyword discovery process is critical for managing enterprise projects, as it forms the bedrock of brand messaging in search and social for large-scale websites or multiple brand sites under one corporate umbrella. This process is similar to keyword discovery for smaller sites; however, the difference in scale makes the process more complex. There are three main steps you need to take when preparing for Enterprise Keyword Discovery: Incorporate the social voice of the customer into your keyword and content research. This ensures that your page content is relevant and timely for us [...]

SEO Opportunities Begin Well Before New Website Development

Mar 25, 2013 at 11:37am ET by Eric Enge

Launching a new site, or any major site update, for a large enterprise comes with some unique challenges. A short summary of some of the most common include those listed below. SEO Challenges: New Site Launch Or Major Updates Too many decision makers. This is one of the more basic headaches. Product marketing, engineering, PR and the executive branch can all weigh-in in ways that can have you ripping your hair out. Many development priorities. This is often the most frustrating challenge, because it is the hardest one to combat. Other priorities may well be more important in the short [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

Top 10 Tool Features For Successful Enterprise SEO

Mar 18, 2013 at 12:48pm ET by Paul Bruemmer

In 2007, I had the unique opportunity of building an in-house SEO team for an enterprise-level e-commerce retailer. From an SEO perspective, the website had been the accouterment of hacks, built over a six-year period with absolutely no consideration for search engines. The founder CEO was persuaded by a very bright 26-year-old VP to rebuild the site with search engines in mind. That VP had the marketing savvy to understand the power of natural search and hired me to build an in-house SEO team. Over the next five years, we generated enormously high recurring revenues at a fraction of the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

How To Work With Four Common SEO Leadership Styles

Mar 11, 2013 at 12:34pm ET by Conrad Saam

I’ve had the pleasure of working on SEO in a variety of companies both in house and, frequently, through casual advice to other companies. After eight years in the business, I’m convinced that the success of search for an in-house person hinges on their ability to work within a leader’s approach to search. This is due to the interdepartmental cooperation needed to effectively run search as well as the fluid nature of our business. What follows are four extreme leadership caricatures, vis-a-vis search, and recommendations on how to most effectively work search into an organizatio [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

The Paradox Of New Vs. Old SEO

Mar 4, 2013 at 10:35am ET by Adam Audette

SEO is at a crossroads. Everything in the search industry is continually changing: Google is rolling out new algorithms, tools, and products; Bing is partnering with Facebook in ever more interesting ways; SEO toolsets are being forced to change their approach; and techniques used by SEOs are continually being re-visited to test their validity. Yet, there's a paradox that exists amidst this feverish pace of change: classic, boring, "old SEO" is still what works best. Now, before you publicly flagellate me for sounding off with such sacrilegious puffery, please continue reading. Signs [...]

Why Do Brands Overlook The SEO Opportunity For Non-Branded Keywords?

Feb 25, 2013 at 1:19pm ET by Eric Enge

Many of the large enterprises we work with have a significant brand. They can mount advertising campaigns to create leverage for all of their marketing efforts. Sometimes, this comes out a bit sideways from an SEO perspective. What I mean is that some of these brands view SEO solely as a means to harvest the benefits of their other marketing efforts, rather than a marketing effort on its own. For example, one brand we work with is only concerned about ranking for its brand names (both the company and individual products). To them, that is the sole purpose of their SEO. This is not quite as [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

How To Build Your Own Enterprise SEO Datastore

Feb 18, 2013 at 12:43pm ET by Ian Lurie

I hereby swear to not use the phrase “big data” again in this post. Enterprise SEO is all about the data. More accurately, it’s all about data storage. If you can look back over a year, pull out different metrics and see which ones correlate to success, you’re one step closer to repeating that success. If you realize at the end of the year it would’ve been realllllly nice to know page speed numbers across the whole site, well, you’re sunk. So why are so many ‘big players’ still using Excel as their main data storage tool? Portent’s not exactly ‘enterprise’ sca [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

Your Top 5 Questions About The New gTLD Domain Extensions, Answered

Feb 12, 2013 at 9:01am ET by Kathy Nielsen

Do you know what new gTLDs are? That’s the question I posed to a room filled with marketers and SEO experts at a recent SMX event. Only three of around 40 people in the room raised their hands. Although the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has been talking about new gTLDs for years, it’s clear that there are a number of Internet-savvy professionals that still have questions about what they are, and how they will affect them. With the potential to change search and marketing as we know it, understanding new gTLDs will be vital in 2013 and beyond. What Are [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO | SEO: Domain Names & URLs

Why Enterprises Cannot Ignore Deep Link Building

Jan 28, 2013 at 10:40am ET by Eric Enge

Many enterprise websites, particularly those associated with good brands, obtain lots of links to their home page without any focused link building effort. In some sense, you could say that they get these links "for free." Since this is the case, do these sites really need to have a dedicated link building effort in place? I thought you would never ask ... Algorithm Update Regularity Increasing I have been known to say that 2011 and 2012 marked a major transition in Google's spam fighting capabilities and mindset. Panda, Penguin, EMD, DMCA/Pirate, & Page Layout / Top Heavy Ads all had on [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

5 Whopping Lies That Keep SEO At Status Quo

Jan 21, 2013 at 2:06pm ET by Ian Lurie

I’m a little dense. I admit it. Sometimes things just don’t sink in. Me and the many voices in my head have attempted to define Enterprise SEO many times. Is it about big sites? Internal politics? Higher likelihood of failure? IT teams and branding guidelines? Nope. Apparently, enterprise SEO is something we say when we’re clueless. Say I’m on a call with a big development team and I make ridiculous request like, ‘Can we link to the home page at www.domain.com?’ Suddenly, everyone starts throwing enterprise SEO around like poo at a monkey party. I don't understand it. So [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

The Importance Of Big Data, Integrity & Security In Enterprise SEO

Jan 14, 2013 at 11:25am ET by Jim Yu

[caption id="attachment_143067" align="alignright" width="240"] Image via Istockphoto used under license[/caption] The phrase Big Data is everywhere. Not a day passes without the release of another report that describes the extent to which Big Data is influencing how we do business. But, what exactly is Big Data? What does Big Data mean in the context of digital marketing? How can we be more effective search marketers using Big Data? And, what can we do to make sure we have access to Big Data that works? I will deal with these topics in this post. Big Data Explained Big data is a phras [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

Why You Need To Complement Your In-House Team With External Expertise

Jan 7, 2013 at 11:21am ET by Eric Enge

I am a big fan of large enterprise organizations having an in-house SEO team. However, there are strong arguments for supplementing the efforts of your in-house team with help from external SEO expertise. Below are a two major reasons why. The Complexity Of Topics It has been stated many times by the search engines -- there are hundreds of different factors involved in determining rankings for search queries. The complexity has only grown over time, as the search engines constantly seek out new signals for improving rankings. There are many ways that this happens, but one that people often [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

Required Reading For Enterprise SEOs: The Top 25 Posts Of The Year

Dec 31, 2012 at 5:00pm ET by Elisabeth Osmeloski

The Enterprise SEO column made its debut on Search Engine Land midway through 2011, as large companies and big brands were faced with new challenges and massive opportunities in the search world. In 2012, we saw mega-sized content sites lose visibility in search results due to Panda, while the Penguin updates squashed those who gambled their brand credibility with poor link building strategies, both leading to wildly changing SERPs that were only impacted further by Google+ and new features such as authorship markup. Meanwhile, the attention focused social media threatened to take away b [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

The Keys To Success In Enterprise SEO

Dec 24, 2012 at 11:51am ET by Rick DeJarnette

In the world of search engine optimization, Enterprise SEO is an odd bird. Most professional SEOs cut their teeth for years in agencies or independent consulting, doing a jack-of-all-trades level of work. [caption id="attachment_142838" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Image via Shutterstock[/caption] As a result, they are used to digging into source code issues, optimizing individual landing pages for content and metadata, running a variety of detailed, hands-on social media campaigns, running deep analysis on their customer’s Web analytics data, and much, much more. You’d think the [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

You Need To Steer To Survive In A SERP-Happy World

Dec 17, 2012 at 2:09pm ET by Ian Lurie

I was ready to write a completely different column today. Then, I saw the announcement that Raven is doing away with ranking reports and any other SEO data that might ruffle Google’s feathers. I quickly went through denial/anger/bargaining/acceptance: I’m sure they’ll find another way to get this data; this won’t affect anyone else What the #$)(*!*) people?!!! Oh please, let SEOMOZ keep their ranking data, please please Well, crap Then I revisited my old, familiar place: I hate the SERPs. Yep, it’s bizarre: I’m an SEO who hates the fact that we have to track [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

A Year-End Checklist For Evaluating Your Enterprise SEO Program

Dec 10, 2012 at 12:50pm ET by Adam Sherk

As the year comes to a close it is a good time to evaluate your enterprise SEO program and ensure that needed adjustments are made. The best time to do this is actually during budget season so you are able to make a case for additional resources as necessary. But, since budget timing varies from company to company, we’ll stick with a year-end approach to keep things simple. I’m going to focus on the way that SEO is managed and executed within the organization rather than the performance of specific campaigns, but it is important to note that the two are intertwined. In-House Tea [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

Making The Case For Adding Deep Content To Large E-Commerce Sites

Dec 3, 2012 at 1:50pm ET by Eric Enge

Large e-commerce sites present some interesting challenges, and finding ways to build up unique content on the site is one of the toughest. I recently was able to witness a case study situation, and will today share the findings from that. Like any other company, the management team in a large enterprise prefers that everyone work on projects that potentially offer a large scale impact. This can be very challenging on e-commerce sites that cover dozens, or even hundreds, of categories of products. Here are two typical business case scenarios for a given e-commerce site: In thi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

Examining Real World Uses Of Rich Snippets & Markup

Nov 26, 2012 at 3:11pm ET by Barbara Starr

Semantic markup is becoming more and more popular in conjunction with large scale SEO. Adding rich snippets to send rich signals to alert search engines as to the relevancy of your content − whatever vertical they may appear in − is not only a wise move, but an SEO best practice. Included below is an illustrative guide highlighting currently available Chrome extensions, which you can leverage to both test on-site markup as well as expose any information regarding your competitors. An example is illustrated below, and what follows is a guide to getting the information. Installi [...]

10 Reasons Enterprise SEO Is Trouble, Plus 4 Ways To Make It Work

Nov 19, 2012 at 12:43pm ET by Ian Lurie

It sounds really attractive: 9-5 hours. You get to focus on a single product. You can win over a single IT department. The grass is way greener over there. But the truth is, in the SEO world, the large enterprise is in trouble. I know about brand favoritism. And I know large enterprises have massive resources at their disposal. All marketers have if only moments: after a particularly grueling client meeting or a day of fighting one fire after another, we think ‘If only I was an in-house SEO at a big, big company.’ The problem? They can never seem to use those resources. And except [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO

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