It often seems that algorithm changes and new technical tricks drive SEO news, but in most cases consistently creating quality content and adhering to well-accepted SEO best practices yield the most consistent results. The need for consistent execution holds true even for, or rather especially for, enterprise businesses.
Jared Gardner shares several challenges and lessons learned from instituting practices to consistently execute content creation and SEO processes for large enterprise teams. While focused on enterprise teams, these processes can also provide guidance for small and medium-sized organizations.
At its core, Gardner recommends organizations focus on:
- Creating quality content on relevant topics that users search for
- Making sure search engines can access it
- Establishing your site as an authority
With those focuses, he recommends organizations spend 80% of their SEO time on site improvements including creating new content, implementing on-page optimizations, and fixing technical SEO errors.
With his emphasis on execution, I thought the following takeaways were particularly well put:
“Action: If it’s not live, it’s not working.”
Focus on publishing relevant content for both existing keywords and potential new target keywords (based upon perceived gaps in keyword coverage). Focus on publishing both quick pieces (e.g. blog posts) to maintain a good content velocity and longer form evergreen content. For existing content, regularly review content for Click Through Rate performance and update on-page optimization and content (for freshness) as appropriate.
“Scale: Systems enable action and reduce friction.”
Leverage a Content Management System to empower your content creators to easily add and edit high-quality content without needing to involve your development team. The focus should be on marketers building pages and developers building systems (to empower the marketers to create professional and compelling content). Focus on building appropriate internal linking by linking to related content with appropriate keyword utilization (e.g. related content blocks, sidebars, automated link creation for target keywords, etc.). As appropriate, empower marketers to adjust aspects of technical SEO including XML Sitemaps and redirects.
While not every organization will have enterprise resources or need to produce the breadth of content required for enterprise SEO success, the focuses outlined can help SEOs and marketers at all sizes or organizations focus on execution.
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