1. Using a Non-SEO to Manage the Campaign
Kind of obvious really right? Maybe, maybe not. Although “hard” SEO skills may not be necessary, but an understanding of “basic” SEO definitely is for any serious brand. Doesn’t matter if the actual SEO is being carried out by an external agency – in order to align the brand and it’s strategies you need someone who understands both – an SEO Manager needs to understand both. Lack of understanding, or even lack of interest in knowing can not only slow the businesses SEO strategy, it can have negative effects.
An intuitive or intelligent individual can go a long way in improving your campaign – and be able to tell all the bullshit apart from real advice – as Rae so decently pointed out.
2. Assuming That They Can Do All SEO in-House – on Budget
SEO isn’t not a fixed skill, which once you have done it for a couple of years, then you know it all. It is an ever changing, ever moving set of goal posts. In house teams that are tiny, or haven’t been built organically based on skill, seldom have the time to research or play with unrelated categories. At the same time, unless you are a pure online player, the access to resources and broad skill bases may be limited.
If you are a big brand, and want to do real SEO in house on a budget, I wouldn’t advise it – you could hire a full time SEO agency for the cost of 2-3 staff – and have access to advanced skills and the benefit of their experience day to day with other campaigns. Not saying that it is impossible to have a full in-house SEO team – all I am saying is if you have never done it – plan this strategy with care.
Back in 2007 High Rankings Interviewed Danny Sullivan on the subject – many of the responses still hold true in my opinion. If you are intent on running an inhouse team – at least set up some decent processes for SEO .
3. Not Treating SEO Like a Real Revenue Channel
Sounds surprising right? In my experience, 7 out of the 10 Big Brands I have worked with didn’t have SEO KPIs, Strategies or Plans in place. It was something delegated to an in house tech, or to an agency, often with dismal results. This happens when you don’t give the channel the respect it deserves.
SEO is actually more than a series of link builders and content writers, it is a full blown Marketing Discipline, that needs strategy, thought, research and focus on.
4. Not Separating Brand Traffic and Sales from Generic Keyword Sets
To me this is the biggest failure. Looking at “SEO” revenue as a whole and then assuming that the channel is healthy is quite myopic. Brand traffic in most cases is a given including those sales as part of the ROI is not the best way to judge the return on investment. A clued up Big Brand would value the revenue gained from Generic Keywords.
Some brands (especially those in highly competitive industries) do this really well – while more traditional Big Brands don’t in my experience.
5. Not Involving The SEO Team
This a massive process issue in many businesses. From full marketing plans to press releases, from product release to PR disaster, the SEO team should be involved or kept aware of at every stage. There are often first mover advantages in SEO, especially PR. Not giving your own team the edge means you are actually working in detriment of the brand in the long run. For example, one brand I worked with had a policy of distributing their Press Releases before they were published on the site “PR” Section. The result? A third party site that auto publishes press releases got into Google News first and made it next to impossible for this brand to get in that space.
Rishi Lakhani is a Search Strategist who works with a range of Big Brands on SEO and Online Marketing. He Guest Blogs for Blogstorm and other UK Marketing Blogs and takes active interest in the UK and International Search Community. You can find Rishi on Twitter, or at his blog Explicitly.me.You can get our blog posts delivered for free by email every day - simply add your email address to the box below or alternatively grab the RSS feed.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Really excellent post Rishi; I enjoyed that.
I really like this article. Great stuff!
Processes are the name of the game. You can't improve upon what you don't measure. Great job on your posts at explicitly.me. I noticed you started writing in it again, I love every single article I read, especially the ROI focused ones.Thank you.
You hit the nail on the head, Rishi. I particularly agree with your inclusion of 3.) Not Treating SEO Like a Real Revenue Channel.
Believe it or not, I've actually seen "SEO" as a line item on 3 different proposals from marketing agencies – each time, explained as "an event" rather than "a process" — or my believe, that SEO is a lens by which all marketing activity should be viewed. Each time, the SEO line item was really just the process of publishing something online – and once, the SEO deliverable being proposed was something to be created in Flash… Man, I felt insane at first, but now realize I was the sane one living in an insane world.
Thanks for your excellent writing!
How true, the second one "Assuming That They Can Do All SEO in-House – on Budget" seems to be the most common mistake.
I think if you are going to make someone do SEO at your company you need to find a person that is passionate about marketing and technology. SEO truly requires a person to be somewhat of a marketer before a technical superstar,
I love this article. And I agree that some companies still try to cut down their budget even they are big companies already. Also some companies nowadays still do not consider SEO as a revenue channel to their business. I think they need more trainings and seminars what really is SEO, what they can do for the company and the likes
I totally agree Search Application Development (SAD) or if you prefer (SEO)
is the foundation for all other marketing techniques. It is fundamental that a SAD member is part of the concept team. (in marketing terms SAD will be remembered & used time & again !! then you prove yourself )
Oh and Patrick can I get a reply on my comment ref http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/may-day-update-increas...
Good stuff. SEO really is that important online.
Very crisp post and the points mentioned are bang on. Big brands need to listen . SEO is a very real revenue channel if the right strategies are used. Not to forget SEO is very useful when it comes to brand recall.
I'd agree with all of this but add to point 4 that it's not just about measuring the revenue gained from generic keywords – your headline terms, but even more importantly that gained from your non-branded long tail search. You'll usually find that this is where the majority of the return on investment will come from.
Wow, great advice. Thanks for the tips!
Unless you are an expert in guerilla marketing, which many aren't, I guess you can't afford to be stingy on SEO work.
You pay peanuts and get monkeys…hence leave it to the pros to build up a strong brand.
"Assuming That They Can Do All SEO in-House – on Budget" – interesting point here.
Oddly, I assumed that any large, corporate company would have the resources to get major SEO done. I've since been proved wrong. It's much more cost-effective to hire a firm that has streamlined the SEO processes.
I totally agree with Rishi Lakhani…
SEO in-House may work, but only by luck and time.
thanks
There is a lot of ways that SEOs can go wrong, especially at the beginning as it can be trail and error. I think you wrote a great article and it will help more companies decided where to go rather than jumping on the "really cheap" SEO band wagon.
The biggest mistake that I see large brands commit regarding SEO is not doing SEO at all! Its amazing at how many large brand's just depend on their branded keywords, and nothing else.
thank you so much for this article
A very interesting read! I am trying to learn about SEO as well as I can, as we are a small family business on a shoestring budget – I only wish it was a little easier! What makes it worse is that others loathe to share the 'secrets' to higher search rankings.
I am considering hiring a local website firm for SEO, but their rates are so high. Any ideas what programs like 'Internet Business Promoter' are like?
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